The causes of maternal and child undernutrition – food insecurity, poor health and inappropriate care – are predictable and preventable. Yet many countries have failed to achieve a sustainable reduction of child malnutrition and will not be in a position to achieve their Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets.
 
REACH is a country-led approach to scale-up proven and effective interventions addressing child undernutrition through the partnership and coordinated action of UN agencies, civil society, donors, and the private sector, under the leadership of national governments.

Letter from the new Global Coordinator seconded from UNICEF

Friends,

I greet you all and I look forward to working with you within the REACH global partnership during the two years ahead.  I am very excited to join REACH at this stage as it seems there is a new sense of urgency, globally as well as within many countries, to address the problems of hunger and undernutrition, and I know that we have collectively generated many ideas and experiences that can make a difference.  The REACH experiences in Lao PDR and Mauritania are very important in that respect and I am grateful to my predecessor, Dr Denise Costa Coitinho Delmué, the REACH secretariat, focal points and partners for having built a strong foundation for the next phase of REACH expansion and learning.
 
For those of you whowould like to know more about me, suffice it to say that I have behind me over 40 years of active involvement in global, country level and community work around the problems of hunger and undernutrition.  I believe in a sound ‘reflection-action’ process, as I articulated in the nutrition focused Triple A Cycle (assessment-analysis-action) many years ago, and I know that in order for this to become fully effective, it has to be truly inclusive of all those involved and especially those we claim to support. I also believe that all work within and related to the United Nations has to be based on its founding principle of human rights and that this is why, with all the knowledge and experience that we have accumulated, I firmly believe that we now can and must address the problems of child hunger and undernutrition at scale and with all our resources.
 
I have enjoyed every day of my professional life as an opportunity to witness human strength, ingenuity and solidarity reassuring me that change is possible and that change is, indeed, happening.  What we can do, if we use our wisdom and passion properly, is to accelerate this process.  It can be done!

Bjorn Ljungqvist, REACH Global Coordinator
Rome, August 1, 2010.