The economic cost of malnutrition incurred by Cameroon every year is around CFA354 billion, says the United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF.

“Beyond losses in productivity, the reduction of human capital is a veritable hindrance to development and the emergence [the] country,” the UN programme said in a statement.

More than 178,000 children under the age of five are currently believed to be suffering from acute malnutrition in four hard-hit regions, making them nine time more likely to die than other children.

Nationwide, one child in three under the school-going age suffers from the more insidious chronic malnutrition, which can lead to irreversible cognitive and physical damage.

“If nothing is done in Cameroon urgently, the next generation that enters the working population in 19 years, about a million Cameroonians, will be less productive because they would have suffered chronic malnutrition between 2010 and 2020,” said UNICEF.

“This situation should be a major worry to political decision makers and the private sector that needs qualified labour as well as potential consumers since chronic malnutrition is known reduce an individual’s adult age economic gain by 22 to 45%.”

UNICEF has started working with the private sector to help bring down the country’s high malnutrition figures and reverse the economic impact of the problem under the global Scaling up nutrition or SUN initiative.

For the first time, over 30 representatives of the private sector invited by UNICEF and the ministry of health discussed the issue during a Business Forum for Nutrition that took place in Douala in May 2014.

Some actions already on the table include the production of nutritional supplements for children, the use of the mobile phone to communicate and share data and financial contributions to a nutrition investment fund that will soon be created.