World Vision is calling for a rethink in the fight against child malnutrition, urging governments and development partners to act before children reach the point where they need life-saving treatment.

The humanitarian organisation says priority should be prevention, ensuring that children have access to nutritious meals from the earliest stages of life, rather than waiting until malnutrition has taken hold.

The call was made at the 7th Global Conference of the Micronutrient Forum 2026, where global nutrition stakeholders are exploring solutions to malnutrition.

According to World Vision’s Regional Leader for West Africa, Carla Denizard, more than 14.4 million children under five in the region are currently affected by malnutrition.

World Vision says the alarming figure should strengthen efforts to ensure that children have access to nutritious food from the earliest stages of life, rather than waiting until malnutrition becomes severe before taking action.

The organization’s Global Director for Health and Nutrition, Dan Irvine, says treating severe malnutrition saves lives, but waiting until children reach that stage means intervention has come too late.

“We must as a community focus on the prevention of malnutrition for children. It is not enough to prioritize treatment of malnutrition because if children have become acutely or severely malnourished, we have already failed them. We must prevent malnutrition.”

Mr. Irvine says prevention begins with ensuring that children and families can consistently access nutritious diets, particularly through foods that are available within their own communities.

He notes that many communities already have access to nutritious food resources but require the right support to turn those resources into balanced and healthy meals for children and families.

Ms. Denizard also highlighted Ghana’s school feeding programme, describing it as an important platform that could deliver even greater benefits if more of the food supplied to schools were sourced directly from local farmers.

She says connecting school meals with local agricultural production could strengthen food security, create livelihoods, and improve the quality of nutrition available to children.

“What we need to do is integrate it so that the home meals are grown locally so that we improve agricultural production, we improve food security, so all the food that is sourced for the school meals comes right from the community.”

Such an approach, she explains, would allow farmers and mothers involved in vegetable production to benefit economically while contributing to healthier meals for children.

“That way you see that farmers are benefiting; the mothers are producing the vegetables. That way you're improving the livelihoods of all the members in the community while you're also enhancing the nutrition of the children.”

For World Vision, the conversation around child nutrition must now go beyond simply ensuring that children