Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding

Overview

WHO and UNICEF jointly developed the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding whose aim is to improve - through optimal feeding - the nutritional status, growth and development, health, and thus the very survival of infants and young children.

The Global Strategy's specific objectives are:

• to raise awareness of the main problems affecting infant and young child feeding, identify approaches to their solution, and provide a framework of essential interventions;
• to increase the commitment of governments, international organizations and other concerned parties for optimal feeding practices for infants and young children;
• to create an environment that will enable mothers, families and other caregivers in all circumstances to make - and implement - informed choices about optimal feeding practices for infants and young children.

The Strategy is intended as a guide for action; it identifies interventions with a proven positive impact, it emphasizes providing mothers and families the support they need to carry out their crucial roles, and it explicitly defines the obligations and responsibilities in this regard of governments, international organizations and other concerned parties.

Everyone concerned should move swiftly and deliberately to give tangible effect to the Global Strategy's vital aim and practical objectives to help make the world a truly fit environment where all children can thrive and achieve their full potential.