Malnutrition in South Asia: A regional profile

Malnutrition is a social problem of staggering dimensions in South Asia. More than half of all the world's malnourished preschool children live in this region. Women here are more malnourished than anywhere else. It is not just the numbers that are high, but the proportions too. Trends are broadly in the right direction, but progress is painfully slow. A new initiative and new energy is needed to make a difference. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has recognised this too. The Rawalpindi Resolution on Children in South Asia which emerged from the 1996 SAARC Inter-Ministerial Conference referred to: "widespread malnutrition in children, especially amongst those under two years of age which is closely linked not only to poverty but also to inappropriate child caring practices and infections". The Resolution goes on to re-affirm end decade goals for the reduction of severe and moderate malnutrition and contains an agreement to accelerate progress towards these goals by: "launching a comprehensive nutrition in South Asia..." The bedrock of such an initiative has to be a broad consensus on the nature of the problem and its causes. Assessment and analysis are essential precursors to appropriate action. To this end, the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia decided in 1996 to invite several academics and practitioners from the region to contribute state-of-the-art reviews of various aspects of the malnutrition problem in South Asia. Terms of reference were broadly divided into three parts: -A regional description of the nature, and consequences of the particular problem area, drawing on recent data, and explaining why the problem is particularly important for South Asia;-A summary of the main approaches being taken to address the problem in the region strategies, policies, programmes --- and what is known about their effectiveness;-Next steps or key action priorities to be pursued in the remaining years of the decade and beyond. I am grateful to Stuart Gillespie who managed this project, edited and produced this report, and to the authors - C.S Pandav, V. Ramalingaswami, J.E. Rohde, S.K. Roy, S. Seshadri, HPS Sachdev, M. Bloem, S. de Pee and I. Darnton-Hill for their willingness to contribute this valuable material and provide their insights.