“Countries with the highest numbers of malnourished children urgently need to step up the way they respond to the problem in order to prevent millions of unnecessary deaths, according to a joint report,” titled the “Nutrition Barometer” and released on Friday by Save the Children and World Vision, AlertNet reports. According to the news service, the report, “which provides a snapshot of national governments’ commitments to addressing children’s nutrition, found that of 36 countries, where 90 percent of the world’s malnourished children live, almost a quarter have shown little progress in tackling the crisis” (Win, 9/21).

In the report, the charities call on world leaders meeting at the U.N. General Assembly to address child undernutrition and “warn that unless promises are translated into swift action, the ambitious commitment made at the World Health Assembly earlier this year to reduce the number of stunted children by 40 percent, by 2025, will not be met,” a joint press release states (Frew, 9/21). “India, despite experiencing strong economic growth in the past few years, shares the bottom rank — countries defined by the study as having low levels of political, legal and financial commitment and little changes to the high rates of malnutrition — with Democratic Republic of Congo and Yemen,” AlertNet notes, adding, “These three countries, together with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Niger, Ethiopia and Madagascar, also have the worst nutrition and child survival outcomes, the report said” (9/21).