GRAN believes that access to nourishing food is every child's human right. Children don't just need food. They have a right to it.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) recognizes that all children up to 18 years of age are entitled to inalienable rights, including the right to healthy food and adequate nutrition, the right to non-discrimination, and the right to have their best interests considered in all matters that affect them. 1
And yet, the world is failing in its duties to protect these human rights. Children at home and around the globe are hungry.
Child hunger is an especially critical problem within the broader issue of global hunger because of how children are impacted by malnutrition. Children -- particularly those under the age of five -- have unique nutritional needs to ensure their healthy development. Malnutrition in these crucial developmental years can irreparably harm a child’s future, causing permanent damage to their cognitive development, physical growth and health, and endangering their very survival. Chronically malnourished children risk facing lives marked by illness, compromised learning, and poverty, with consequences that extend across generations.
According to UNICEF, more than a quarter of the world's children under 5 are living in severe food poverty, and fully two-thirds of the world’s youngest children are not getting all the essential nutrients they need to grow and to thrive. 2 Globally, when a child dies, half the time the underlying cause is malnutrition. 3
All-of-GRAN Campaign for 2024/2025
GRAN is committed to focusing on child hunger for this next phase of advocacy on the Right to Food. We will dedicate our efforts to raising public awareness. We want to influence public opinion in support of action to address child hunger at home and in the Global South.
- Check out our Small Sips series for some of the learning we have undertaken to date. Series I covers global hunger and the Right to Food. Series II is just beginning, and will focus on child hunger and ways in which we can meet our responsibilities towards the world's hungry children.
- Keep an eye on our Learning Events page for upcoming webinars as well as recordings of past webinars on global hunger and food security.
- Go to our Take Action page for concrete actions you can take for global food justice.
- And continue scrolling down this page for our growing library of resources on Child Hunger.
