Govt, WB alliance to combat malnutrition

Rasika Somarathna

COLOMBO: The Government with World Bank assistance has launched a programme to critically analyse malnutrition in the country.

The programme under the theme of Nutrition in Sri Lanka: 'Rethink yesterday change tomorrow', is the beginning of a vital dialogue to support Sri Lanka in tackling malnutrition.

The Bank will support the Government to build a nutrition alliance, World Bank sources said.

According to the World Bank, Sri Lanka can boast of better health indicators than most countries with comparable per capita incomes. However, despite investing much on nutrition programmes over the years, surprisingly the country has not performed well in reducing malnutrition.

The World Bank predicts that Sri Lanka would achieve all millennium development goals except the nutrition goal of halving child underweight rates.

To address this issue, the Government, the World Bank and a number of key development partners including the Ministry of Health, launched a programme on Tuesday to come up with viable solutions for combatting malnutrition.

According to World Bank country Director Peter Harrold 29 per cent of Sri Lankan children are underweight and 30 per cent women and children (under five years) are anaemic. The country faces serious consequences in human capital development.

According to statistics Sri Lanka despite having outstanding basic health indicators is on par with Africa when it comes to malnutrition. "The two targets, poverty and malnutrition are closely linked- one represents income poverty and the second represents non-income poverty.

"We need to understand why Sri Lanka is lagging behind on these targets and address the issues immediately," Harrold said. Sri Lanka's low infant and maternal mortality and high life expectancy are the lowest among the South Asian region, yet child underweight rate is the highest among the few countries with a similar per capita income. Thus the country has done well to ensure a healthy birth but needs to do more to make sure children stay healthy in the first few years.

"Initially we all think that putting more food in the mouth of schoolchildren will improve nutrition and yet relevant data shows us there is actually a very small "Window of opportunity" to improve nutrition, between pre-pregnancy and the first two years of age. The damage that occurs during this period is irreparable.

"If we miss this window, we have missed the opportunity to address an entire generation of children," World Bank's Nutritional specialist Meera Shekar said. According to Health Ministry sources there are great disparities across sectors, socio economic strata and education levels with highest rates among the poor and in the poorest provinces such as Uva and in the estate sector. Malnutrition is also very high in conflict affected areas. The rate is as high as 40 per cent.