As world leaders gather for the 79th United Nations General Assembly, the Gates Foundation Annual Goalkeepers 2030 convening gathered the thinkers and doers around the globe to discuss solutions to keep people healthy and nourished in a rapidly warming world, focused on better nutrition for all so that everyone can reach their full potential.

The 2023 UNICEF Report on Child Food Poverty reveals that two-thirds of the world’s children—over 400 million—are not receiving enough nutrients to grow and thrive. The WHO estimates that in 2023, 148 million children experienced stunting, and 45 million children suffered from wasting, which are the most severe forms of chronic and acute malnutrition. When a child dies, malnutrition is the underlying cause half the time.

I and the Wellbeing Foundation Africa congratulate the 2024 cohort of Goalkeepers Champions, as we welcome the much needed Goalkeepers Report 2024, as a recipe for progress towards targeted actions as the world grapples with the worst child health crisis, malnutrition, in which no country, however rich, is immune.

At the private reception hosted by Bill Gates following the Goalkeepers main programme, I joined fellow global health stakeholders in agreeing that while malnutrition makes every step forward more difficult, a united effort to address and solve malnutrition now, will make every other problem easier to solve.