Eloise Todd, Brussels director at ONE said:

“Millions of children, particularly in Africa, still suffer throughout their lives because of stunting caused by under-nutrition during their mother’s pregnancy or early in life.  We welcome today’s decision to back the EU’s new strategy for reducing under nutrition in developing countries.

“The international conference on under nutrition in the UK next month will be a key opportunity to turn these words into action and significantly scale up funding for nutrition.  The European Commission should lead by example with an ambitious financial commitment to underpin its target of reducing the number of children affected by stunting by 7 million by 2025.

“Development ministers today confirmed that 20 EU member states have not yet reached their individual aid targets for 2010 and overall EU progress on reaching 0.7 by 2015 is significantly off track.  We’ve seen the kind of results smart aid can achieve and with less than 1000 days to go to hit the Millennium Development Goals, it’s crucial that EU member states reverse aid cuts. ”