Joint Action to Stop Wasting (JASW)

With only five years remaining to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, child wasting remains unacceptably high. Conflict, climate change, inequality, and economic shocks threaten the progress we've made to save children from this most lethal form of malnutrition.

The Joint Action to Stop Wasting partnership represents a fundamental shift in how UNICEF and WFP jointly address child wasting in humanitarian settings. In support of governments, this initiative puts prevention first while ensuring treatment remains available for those children who need it most.

Our commitment 

UNICEF and WFP have joined forces to accelerate prevention and treatment of wasting in children and women across 15 high-burden countries facing humanitarian crises and high levels of acute food insecurity and malnutrition.

Our goal is clear: prevent wasting and help every child survive and grow to their fullest potential.

A new collaborative approach 

This partnership transforms how both agencies operate by:

• Putting prevention first – Protect children before wasting occurs.
• Supporting maternal nutrition – Healthy mothers raise healthy children.
• Delivering integrated and tailored services – Prevention, early detection, and treatment delivered together - in the same communities.
• Reaching the most vulnerable – Prioritize children, women, and populations at highest risk, supported by analysis
• Investing in sustainable solutions – Use local foods and systems to support longterm impact.

This integrated approach reduces duplication, enhances coordination, and achieves greater impact with shared resources – allowing us to reach more vulnerable women and children.

How we work together

UNICEF works through community health systems to prevent and treat wasting through:

• Ante- and post-natal care to improve nutrition of mothers
• Breastfeeding and complementary feeding support services
• Improving diets of children, providing micronutrients and deworming
• Early identification and treatment of children with severe wasting and moderate wasting at highest risk of mortality

WFP works in communities to prevent and manage wasting by:

• Providing (or facilitating with cash) nutritionally adequate, fortified food baskets for food insecure households and complementing with cash or specialized nutritious foods for pregnant and breastfeeding women and young children living in these households
• Supporting the local production and consumption of nutrient dense foods for pregnant and breastfeeding women and young children
• Dietary management of moderate wasting, exploring a variety of context-specific options

Where we work

Joint Action to Stop wasting operates in 15 high burden crisis-affected countries. Across these countries, 33 million children suffer from wasting, with over 9 million of them experiencing severe wasting—the most life-threatening form of malnutrition.

Join our efforts

Joint Action to Stop Wasting represents a global shift in how we address child wasting in humanitarian settings—saving lives now and building stronger communities for the future. Join us. Together, we can break the cycle of child wasting and maternal undernutrition.

The Joint Action to Stop Wasting partnership is aligned with the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting and the WHO Guideline on the Prevention and Management of Child Wasting.