The persistence of social conditions that enforce the status quo is the biggest obstacle to achieving the end of hunger and poverty. On 20 January, in a conference call with 1,000 Hunger Project leaders from around the world, Joan Holmes discussed the linkage between social discrimination against women, women's undernutrition, and the health and vitality of all of society. The persistence of hunger is measured by the infant mortality rate. In recent years, the scientific community has recognized that, apart from infectious diseases and issues like clean drinking water, the single key issue that correlates most with infant mortality is low birth weight. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.
Girls are the worst off, with the most severe cases of malnutrition.
The experts concluded that the exceptionally high rates of malnutrition in children in South Asia are rooted deep in the soil of inequality between men and women. South Asian women are born into a system that denies them value, dignity and selfhood. When women are sick, they are much less likely to have access to health care than men. By contrast, the proportion in sub-Saharan Africa is 20 percent. It is these undernourished women who give birth to underweight babies, who are at severe risk in all areas of personal development, including health and mental capacity.