8. Child nutrition in South Asia * For age group 6-59 months 1. National Family Health Survey, India, 2005-06 2. Nepal Demographic Health Survey, 2006 3. Bangladesh Demographic Health Survey, 2004 4. Pakistan Demographic Health Survey, 2007 5. Sri Lanka Demographic Health Survey, 2007
9. Reductions in child underweight from 1988-92 to 2001-2006 Source: Global Hunger Index 2008; Appendix C
13. Why should we improve early childhood nutrition? % Source: Hoddinott et al. Lancet, 2008
14. Improving nutrition in early childhood and adult wage rates Age when exposed to intervention (months) p < 0.01 p < 0.01 p = 0.41 US$ / hour Source: Hoddinott et al. Lancet 2008
15. Pathways by which improving early nutrition increases wages BRAIN BRAWN Source: Behrman et al. in press Child development (early childhood) Height at 3 y Height, strength, CV resistance (adulthood) Schooling 1.2 grade (women) Cognitive skills (adulthood )(0.25 SD) More skilled jobs
16. Drivers of maternal and child undernutrition Social protection and gender policies and interventions are essential to make a difference! Black et al., Lancet 2008
Draws heavily on work of Purnima Menon (PHND) and Anjor Baskar from NDO; Neha Kumar (PHND), Ahkter Ahmed (PHND)
Almost 10 years ago, IFPRI colleagues Lisa Smith and Lawrence Haddad pointed to the big contribution that improvements in women’s education and women’s status made to reductions in child malnutrition worldwide
More recent findings…Every year since 2007, IFPRI computes the new Global Hunger Index. Last year, correlated this with the GGI index produced by the World Economic Forum. Overall, there is a strong, negative correlation between gender equality and global hunger. Component with highest correlation with global hunger is the education sub-index, followed by the health sub-index.
Strongest correlation is with education…with a notable regional exception.
If we look at the trends in the underlying components, we see a relatively steady decline in under five mortality rates over the last 15 years or so.
But social exclusion—in its various forms—is highly correlated with malnutrition
Most growth faltering occurs between 0 to 24 months. Kids start off close to normal (0 SD) but then deteriorate.
I may be preaching to the choir, but…
Negative effect on hours, positive (insig) effect on total income. But, productivity. 0-2 had greatest impact
The India State Hunger Index 2008 findings highlight the continued overall severity of the hunger situation in India, while revealing the variability in hunger across states within India. It is indeed alarming that not a single state in India is either low or moderate in terms of their hunger index scores; most states have a “serious” hunger problem, and one state, Madhya Pradesh, has an extremely alarming hunger problem
And even within Asia, the link between gender and nutrition is mediated by differences in social, economic, and cultural conditions. Why does this matter in terms of child nutrition? Why do we care?