The precise interpretation of statistics is crucial, as misrepresenting data can fundamentally alter its meaning and public understanding. On March 31, 2026, during an audio recording titled “Ten Years Without a Review, Part 4,” disseminated by the online platform Be Africa, exiled Beninese opposition figure Martin Rodriguez made a significant assertion. He claimed that in Benin, “more than 45% of children under 5 years old die from malnutrition.”
To bolster this statement, Rodriguez alleged that his figures originated from the United Nations. He encouraged listeners to verify this themselves: “I read a United Nations report, two reports. One of them concerns child mortality. It’s on the internet, everyone listening, type on your phone, go to Google,” he stated before presenting his specific child mortality rate linked to malnutrition.
Context of the claims
The Be Africa publication, “Ten Years Without a Review, Part 4,” emerged amidst the electoral campaign leading up to Benin’s presidential election on April 12, 2026. In discussions featured on Be Africa’s channels, Martin Rodriguez, a businessman and vocal Beninese opposition leader living in exile, offered a sharp critique of Patrice Talon’s administration over the preceding decade in Benin. “We have experienced an increase in poverty; poverty has grown,” he declared, prior to introducing his statistic on child mortality. These allegations were initially part of a longer debate published two days earlier on Be Africa’s YouTube channel before appearing on Facebook.
Despite the reference to the United Nations, the assertion that “more than 45% of children under 5 years old die from malnutrition” in Benin is factually incorrect.
What online research reveals
Following Martin Rodriguez’s recommendation, an initial search was conducted using keywords such as “malnutrition, mortality, children, 5 years, Benin” on Google. A subsequent search directly incorporated his specific claim: “more than 45% of children under 5 years old die from malnutrition.”
These searches led to an advocacy brief published on the UNICEF-Benin website, titled “Malnutrition: A Risk Factor for Mortality and Morbidity in Children.”
The statistics presented in this publication, dated April 30, 2020, significantly differ from those put forth by the Beninese opposition leader. The document clearly indicates that “Malnutrition is the greatest risk factor for mortality and morbidity in young children in Benin” and that “it accounts for 45 percent of all child deaths annually among children under 5 years old.”
This UNICEF statistic is also cited in an article from the specialized health website Allo Docteurs, originally published on November 18, 2024, and updated on June 25, 2025. This media outlet reports that “chronic malnutrition is annually responsible for 45% of deaths of children under 5.”
UNICEF Benin refutes Rodriguez’s data
As part of a thorough verification process, UNICEF’s representation in Benin was contacted. In an email received on Tuesday, March 31, 2026, UNICEF Benin unequivocally rejected the data attributed to them.
Regarding the statement: “More than 45% of children under 5 years old die from malnutrition” in Benin, Dorothée Thiénot, Head of Communication for UNICEF-Benin, firmly stated, “Phrased this way, this sentence is false and does not correspond to how the United Nations, including UNICEF, presents data.”
Beyond the fact that the assertion misrepresents actual UN statistics for Benin, Dorothée Thiénot highlighted a crucial distinction: “We refer to the proportion of deaths among children under 5 where malnutrition is an underlying or aggravating factor, not the proportion of all children who die directly from malnutrition.”
Dorothée Thiénot was also asked about the 2020 UNICEF Benin advocacy brief, which stated that “malnutrition is the greatest risk factor for mortality and morbidity in young children in Benin” and “it accounts for 45 percent of all child deaths annually among children under 5 years old.”
In response, Thiénot clarified, “This phrasing was based on estimations available at the time, largely aligned with international analyses that attribute approximately 45% of deaths among children under 5 globally to undernutrition.”
In any case, the Head of Communication for UNICEF Benin emphasized, “it does not mean that ‘45% of children die’” due to malnutrition before the age of 5 in Benin. “This is an erroneous interpretation,” Dorothée Thiénot stressed.
Concerning the current reality of child mortality in Benin, Thiénot explained that “available data is not presented as a ‘malnutrition-specific mortality rate’ for Benin, but rather as: an under-5 mortality rate (number of deaths per 1,000 live births).”
