Bill Gates, Jon Batiste talk combating hunger as report highlights global child malnutrition crisis
More than 400 million children worldwide are not getting the nutrients they need to grow and thrive, according to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's annual Goalkeepers report for 2024.
"There's a lot of distraction away from helping the poorest countries, but it's important to remember the kids there, 5% still die before the age of five," Bill Gates, the foundation's co-chair and co-founder, told "CBS Mornings" on Monday. "Even the kids that survive, 40% are growing up without the right nutrition so their brains, their bodies never develop."
The 2024 report, released on Sept. 17, focusing on child malnutrition, highlights concrete actions that can save lives:
- Increase milk production by 2-3x in low-income countries
- Add nutrients to household staples
- Expand access to prenatal vitamins
According to the Gates Foundation website, nearly 500,000 lives could be saved by 2040 if low- and middle-income countries "adopted Multiple Micronutrient Supplements, the world's most complete prenatal vitamins."
"So now we're trying to make sure every pregnant woman in Africa, where diets don't give them enough of these vitamins, that they have access," the philanthropist said.
Another impact on child malnutrition in the report is climate change, saying that between 2024 and 2050, "climate change will mean 40 million additional children will be stunted, and 28 million additional children will be wasted."
"I think one thing that could draw people in to help out is the rich world has created the climate change problem and yet most of the suffering from climate change will be in poor countries near the equator, including Nigeria," Gates said.
Jon Batiste teams up with Gates
Award-winning musician Jon Batiste recently traveled to Nigeria, where he and Gates met with people working to combat hunger.
"We need more love in the world and my belief is that in this next phase of my life and creativity as I make music and art, there needs to be a usage of the music to power us to be the best version of humanity that we can be," he said. "There's too much in the world for people to not have the basic human rights. Talk about food, water, health care."
Batiste also recorded music while in Nigeria, saying in those moments he realized we're all connected.
"We often underestimate the powers of the arts and culture and music in solving world issues, and that's what's beautiful about having this opportunity to collaborate and be able to solve some things," he said.
Progress in combating hunger
Gates said although progress has been made, there's more work to do.
"At the turn of the century, over 10 million children died under the age of 5 and before the pandemic we cut that in half," he said.
Since then, there has been a plateau.
"If we can remind ourselves about the need, remember the kids in Africa who we were there to go and actually see. We saw a lot of malnourished kids, then we'll get back on that incredible improvement," Gates said.
For Batiste, it's a learning journey.
"I'm trying to figure out, OK, what is there that we can all get behind that doesn't divide us? What is it that we can all get behind across the world and what issues that are common issues can we solve ... and then how do you motivate people to have empathy and to rise to the occasion?"
The Goalkeepers 2024 event will be held on Sept. 23 in New York City. Batiste is one of the performers for the event.