YouSaid · the spoken record

Salem

lines on the record

7

first

2023-08-03

most recent

2023-08-03

sittings or episodes

1

sources

un-security-council

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1. “Early interventions ensure that children will not only survive but thrive and reach their full potential. I sit here today representing the thousands of community-based health-care workers and the millions of malnourished children who are desperately asking for our help and partnership. After all, we are responsible for their circumstances. I hope that history will look at those of us sitting around this table here today as people who stood up for humankind, understood the power of our collective leadership here in this Chamber and said, “Stop. Just stop these conflicts, for the sake of our children”. There are many problems in this world that we cannot solve, but malnutrition is not one of them.”

   2023-08-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9392 (2023) · source

2. “The global momentum proved that we could double the available supply of Plumpy’Nut in a matter of months. The number of children’s lives saved doubled as well, with 7.3 million children treated in 2022. That incredible effort should be recognized and celebrated. Doctors described that intervention as nothing short of a miracle, but I want to stop producing that miracle. I do not want to grow this business, add shifts or build more warehouses. We should not be waiting until children are days away from death to treat them with life-saving food. Rather, the long-term goal should be a shift towards prevention. Early-childhood development depends on healthy food systems, a diverse diet and the essential macronutrients and micronutrients that the body and brain require.”

   2023-08-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9392 (2023) · source

3. “A mere $100 per child covers the cost of a box of Plumpy’Nut, distribution and access to community health care. But with conflicts increasing, our partners have to make tough choices every day. They are struggling with critical funding shortfalls and can meet only 50 per cent of the need. They are faced with an impossible decision — which half of the malnourished children in the world can live and which half will be sentenced to death. Every day they have to decide which countries will receive funding and which programmes will be cut or halved. A year ago, the world took notice of increasing conflict-induced food insecurity, and the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Ireland and private philanthropies made a historic commitment of $500 million to combating malnutrition.”

   2023-08-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9392 (2023) · source

4. “The two biggest contributing factors to hunger and malnutrition are climate change and conflict. We here today have the easier problem to solve. Even with all the efforts that are going into addressing climate change, it requires work that will still take many decades. The good news is that that is not true of conflict. We, right here in this room, control the conflicts. Just as we can decide to wage war, we can decide to end it. Right now, we have two choices. We can feed all the severely malnourished children in the world or we can stop the conflicts. Annually, $1.7 billion is needed to feed 17 million severely malnourished children. Until we end those conflicts, we have the responsibility to take action. Just $1.7 billion can save the lives of 17 million children.”

   2023-08-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9392 (2023) · source

5. “Conflicts threaten to close the doors of those incredibly important businesses that are set up in malnutrition hotspots to deliver those life-saving foods using locally grown raw materials. Just a few months ago, when the conflict in the Sudan began, I was deeply saddened to see that our partner factory in Khartoum was bombed. Everything was destroyed, including thousands of boxes of Plumpy’Nut waiting to be deployed to children in the Sudan. And now, as of this past week, a coup is threatening our partner factory in Niger. In Haiti, violence persists at ever increasing levels, forcing us to construct new security walls. In Ethiopia, Nigeria and Burkina Faso, instability and uncertainty are ever present. That ecosystem is a critical part of the supply chain that United Nations agencies and children depend on, and they must be protected.”

   2023-08-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9392 (2023) · source

6. “It is used in the treatment of severe acute malnutrition by UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the United States Agency for International Development. It is a highly fortified peanut butter that is revolutionary in humanitarian settings because it delivers life-saving nutrition, is easy to distribute in complex humanitarian crises, allows mothers to treat their children at home and has the power to rehabilitate 92 per cent of children in just two months. Edesia is part of a community of factories around the world. We work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to produce enough of those miracle foods, but every day the needs grow. All of us have been adding shifts and equipment, yet more is needed. We manufacture here in the United States and have a partner in France, but our other eight partners are in the global South.”

   2023-08-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9392 (2023) · source

7. “Ms. Salem: The day I first met a two-year-old who weighed the same as my newborn daughter, it changed me forever. I have been face-to-face with a mother and her starving child, and I know that we do not have time to spare. I feel the urgency and I see the fear in her eyes. I have seen children take their last breaths. I have watched their hearts stop beating. When I enter a malnutrition clinic, the first thing I hear is a deafening silence. The children do not have the strength to sit up or cry. All of their energy is expended on keeping their organs from shutting down. Their mothers sit anxiously by, wishing for a miracle. We have that miracle. Today I am representing the private sector as the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Edesia. We make the food that saves lives, a ready-to-use therapeutic food called Plumpy’Nut.”

   2023-08-03 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9392 (2023) · source