We can END Child Deaths from STARVATION. NOT IN A DECADE. NOW.
We don’t need a breakthrough. We just need a new approach.
Malnutrition
The leading cause of death for children under age five, claiming over 2 million young lives each year.
Right now, more than 40 million children are suffering from acute malnutrition. Many of these children are so emaciated that they can barely move. Their arms can shrink to the size of a quarter. Often, they are too weak to even cry. Every 30 seconds, an acutely malnourished child dies.
We could prevent nearly all of these deaths with two simple, proven, cost-effective solutions. These solutions can be scaled up right now, cheaply and sustainably, so no child ever has to die of starvation.
OES has been launched to do just that.
Solution #1: Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food—or RUTF
A peanut-based medical food paste packed with the vitamins, minerals, and proteins a starving child needs to rapidly recover. A child with severe malnutrition is often too sick to eat regular food. RUTF is formulated to bring them back from the brink of death in a matter of weeks.
The cost to reach every starving child with RUTF is approximately $1.7 billion per year. That’s less than Americans spend on snacks every two days.
Scaling up this single product would end mass child deaths from starvation.
Solution #2: Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation (MMS)
A single daily prenatal supplement that combines 15 essential vitamins and minerals.
The best way to stop babies from dying of starvation is to prevent them from becoming malnourished in the first place. Prenatal vitamins can prevent anemia in mothers and help children get the nutrients they need before they’re born.
Our model is simple: Philanthropic capital covers all operating costs, so every public dollar goes directly to fighting malnutrition.
Through a transparent and competitive bidding process, we will:
Choose the most cost-effective manufacturer for every order of RUTF and MMS.
Identify the cheapest means of transportation to effectively get our two lifesaving products from the factory to the countries where acutely malnourished children live.
Choose the most cost-effective partner in each context to deliver RUTF and MMS to mothers and children–be it an NGO, government health workers, or a combination of both.
Rigorously monitor and evaluate the impact and cost-effectiveness of all the programs and partners we fund, and publicly disclose any waste or fraud.
We plan to use this model to deliver 3.2 billion packages of RUTF and 14 billion tablets of MMS by 2032.
That will save the lives of at least 1.8 million children.