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| | Location: | J1-050 | | Begins: | Mon 01/30/2006 12:00PM | | Ends: | Mon 01/30/2006 01:30PM | | Contact Person: | HNP Learning Program |
While world hunger gets more political attention, addressing malnutrition is in fact a key objective of poverty reduction in developing nations. Poor nutrition reflects the non-income face of poverty and has substantive long-term impacts on economies in developing countries. Malnourished children have lower IQs, they perform poorly in school, are more likely to drop out, and have at least 10% lower life-time earning potential. Reversing this trend could improve GDP rates in countries like India and China by as much as 2-3%. To address this important but ignored issue, the InfoShop and the World Bank Human Development Network launched a new document entitled "Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development: A Strategy for Large-Scale Action" on January 30, 2006, at the World Bank’s Washington, D.C. headquarters. The program was chaired by Jean-Louis Sarbib, Senior Vice President and head of of the Human Development Network at the World Bank. Meera Shekar, Senior Nutrition Specialist for the World Bank, presented the key messages from the document: - Malnutrition is the non-income face of poverty, and improved nutrition can be a driver of economic gowth. For this reason, we need to stop viewing nutrition as a welfare issue, or as a consumption issue --and instead, we need to re-position it as an issue that is central to development.
- Malnutrition is a serious problem for the poor, and addressing malnutrition will target the poor. However, poor nutrition also exists among the non-poor, thus suggesting that it is not simply a question of access to food, said Shekar.
- Malnutrition is a big problem in Africa. But it is an even bigger problem in Asia -- many large countries in South Asia (e.g India, Bangladesh...)have underweight rates that are double those in sub-sharan africa. Again, this suggests that malnutrition is not simply an issue of access to food.
- Most malnutrition occurs in the period between pregnancy and the first two years of age. Therfore, the period just before pregnancy until about 2 years offers a very special and cost-effective "window of opportunity" for impacting on nutrition. And, since much of this early damage is irreversible, interventions after this age are too late, too little, and too expensive.
- The greatest challenge to scaling-up nutrition interventions has been the lack of committment and capacity -- among development partners, and among country leaders.
Five responses were then offered to Shekar’s presentation. Richard Skolnik, from the Harvard School of Public Health, commented on the Bank’s slow response to the longstanding nutrition problem. Julian Schweitzer, Sector Director for Human Development for the Bank, noted the efforts that were being made in South Asia to re-direct nutrition investments towards the "window of opportunity" between pregnancy through 2 years of age. Marcia Griffiths, President of the Manoff Group, commented on the central role of behaviour change as a short-route to improving nutrition outcomes. Keith Hansen, Sector Manager for Health, Nutrition, and Population in the Bank’s Latin America and Caribbean region, discussed the urgency of investing in nutrition as a development priority contrasted to the ease of its solutions. James Adams, Vice President of Operations Policy for the Bank, provided a view of how the Bank might realistically implement programs for nutrition. A short question and answer session followed the panelists’ responses. The session ended with a call for action to all development partners to collectively contribute to the scale-up of nutrition investments, starting with the high-burden countries identified in the "Re-positioning Nutrition" document. top
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