The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has honoured remarkable leaders advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with innovative solutions to keep people healthy and nourished in a rapidly warming world at “Goalkeepers 2024: Recipe for Progress.”
The event, which took place during the United Nations General Assembly week, highlighted opportunities to ensure better nutrition for everyone to reach their full potential.
In a press statement released on Thursday, the Chief Executive Officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mark Suzman, said, “Goalkeepers is about bringing together a community of global changemakers who champion the Sustainable Development Goals to energise and inspire each other to continue making progress.
“This year, we’re focused on the more than 400 million children who aren’t getting the nutrients they need to grow and thrive. While climate change is making that challenge harder to solve, progress is possible. By scaling up existing tools, investing in promising research, and lifting up champions like the ones we’re celebrating today, we can help ensure all children can reach their full potential—and build global resilience as the world gets hotter.”
In 2023, the World Health Organisation estimated that 148 million children experienced stunting, a condition where children fail to grow to their full potential mentally or physically, and 45 million children experienced wasting, a condition where children become weak and emaciated, leaving them at much greater risk of developmental delays and death.
The event followed last week’s release of the foundation’s eighth annual Goalkeepers report, “A Race to Nourish a Warming World.”
The report finds that, without immediate global action, climate change will condemn an additional 40 million children to stunting and 28 million more to wasting between 2024 and 2050.
It highlights proven tools that are helping solve malnutrition, building people’s resilience to the worst impacts of climate change, and further driving down childhood deaths.
The statement noted that the 2024 Global Goalkeeper Award, which recognises a leader who has driven progress on a global scale towards achieving Global Goals, was presented to Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
During his first term, President Lula launched Bolsa Família, lunched a robust anti-poverty and social inclusion programme that helped lift millions out of poverty and reduce the nation’s stunting rate from 37 per cent to seven per cent over three decades.
It was noted that Lula is building on this domestic legacy to champion the Global Alliance on Hunger and Poverty as the signature initiative of Brazil’s G20 presidency. The initiative embraces proven, evidence-based strategies to improve food security, enhance health, reduce poverty, and promote equity at scale.
The event also honoured 10 Goalkeepers champions — experts, innovators, advocates, and leaders from around the world — who are leading the charge towards a more nourished world.
The honourees include the Director of Nutrition at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Ladidi Bako-Aiyegbusi (Nigeria); the Executive Director of the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh, Dr Tahmeed Ahmed (Bangladesh); the Founder and Executive Director of HOPE Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, Beza Beshah Haile (Ethiopia); an Assistant Professor of Research at Aga Khan University’s Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, Dr Zahra Hoodbhoy (Pakistan); and a Professor of Paediatrics and Nutrition at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Dr Nancy Krebs (United States).
Others include the Chief of Economic Empowerment at UN Women, Dr Jemimah Njuki (Kenya); the Minister of Health in Rwanda, Dr Sabin Nsanzimana (Rwanda); the National Secretary for Food and Nutrition Security, Lilian dos Santos Rahal (Brazil); a Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Sheffield, Bhavani Shankar (United Kingdom); and the Chairman of Tata Trusts, Ratan Tata.
