Tim Evans :
‘Stunted children today means stunted economies tomorrow.’ This sentiment, recently expressed by African Development Bank President Akin Adesina, encapsulates the sea change in how malnutrition is now viewed by global actors. Mr. Adesina was speaking at an event to launch a new global investment framework called Investing in Nutrition, co-authored by the World Bank and Results for Development Institute, which firmly establishes the importance of nutrition as a foundational part of development. The cost of inaction on malnutrition is immense. Every year, almost half of child deaths under age five are attributable to undernutrition. One quarter of all children around the world – 159 million – are stunted.
This means that their bodies and brains have not grown to their full potential. This puts them at a major disadvantage in learning and acquiring life skills before they even set foot in school. This unequal start compromises their future earnings, contributing to a life of insurmountable inequality. And poor nutrition is not just an issue for the poorest countries. Middle income countries like Guatemala, Indonesia, Nigeria and India, for example, also have high rates of chronic malnutrition, including stunting.
Despite this alarming situation, we have seen decades of underinvestment in nutrition. Developing countries on average devote just one half of one percent of their health budgets to nutrition. Less than one percent of Official Development Assistance (ODA) goes to nutrition. This is self-defeating, and the new investment framework seeks to change this picture.
The science is now indisputable on investing in the first 1000 days of a baby’s life, from pre-pregnancy to a child’s second birthday. “If I had to pick one investment that I could make that would be the most impactful, that would be nutrition,” said Bill Gates, the keynote speaker at the launch event. That’s because investments in early nutrition are not just crucial, they are also irrevocable, with benefits that last a lifetime. We have strong evidence to show that better early nutrition for children results in higher earnings later in life and contributes to overall economic growth. We know that this is a problem that can be solved. Ariela Luna, Peru’s Deputy Minister of Political and Social Assessment, spoke eloquently about the need to “make nutrition a national priority and put it above party politics.” Political commitment at the highest level, the right resources and the right interventions have been key to the success of countries like Peru, which has reduced rates of stunting by half over just seven years. Senegal, for example, has brought its childhood stunting rates down from 30 percent in 2000 to about 19 percent today, the lowest rates in Sub Saharan Africa.
In 2012, the World Health Assembly adopted six global targets for nutrition: for stunting, breastfeeding, anemia, wasting, low birthweight and overweight. The Investing in Nutrition report focuses on the first four, where evidence is the strongest, and maps out not only how much investment would be needed across all Lower Middle Income Countries (LMICs) to attain these targets, but also where those resources could come from. By mobilizing an additional $2.2 billion a year for ten years towards nutrition, a package of the most cost-effective and scalable ‘priority interventions’, could be implemented immediately, according to this new analysis. This would result in 2.2 million fewer child deaths and 50 million fewer stunted children by 2025. This priority package includes measures like Vitamin A supplementation, improved infant and young child nutrition and antenatal micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy. The report also finds that for a more ambitious investment of $7 billion annually, the four costed targets could be fully achieved, with 3.7 million fewer child deaths and 65 million fewer stunted children by 2025. Stunting is the biggest driver on both the health and economic sides of this equation. Moving the needle on that is crucial and would bring an enormous payoff in terms of lives transformed and countries’ increased economic competitiveness.
(From World Bank Blog).
