Reducing all forms of malnutrition,including stunting, is central to the World BankGroup's twin goals of ending extreme poverty andpromoting shared prosperity, as well as building resilienceand preventing instability. Maternal and child undernutrition is estimated to be responsible for about 45percent of child mortality and 11 percent of the globaldisease burden. Conversely, reductions in stunting areestimated to potentially increase overall economicproductivity, as measured by GDP per capita, by 4 to 11percent in Africa and Asia – making investments in earlynutrition one of the most cost-effective development actionsto yield permanent and inalienable benefits.Since 2000,progress in stunting reduction has been slower in Africathan in other regions. While both Asia and Latin America andCaribbean have managed to reduce stunting rates by over onethird, Africa saw a reduction of only one sixth during thesame period. In 2016, over 40 percent of the 159 millionstunted children globally were in Africa (UNICEF, WHO, andWorld Bank, 2016). Accelerating the reduction of stunting inAfrica will be key to maximizing the return on investmentsin early childhood development, in education, and morebroadly in policies aimed at fostering and enhancing humancapital accumulation and job creation.This report consistsof seven chapters. The first chapter focuses on the incomeelasticity of stunting reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa.Chapters second through seventh focus on the potentialfinancing needs and impacts of investing in scaling upstunting reduction interventions in the Africa region as awhole, and in five of the high-burden countries in Africa(Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Niger, and Rwanda). Whilethe first chapter offers a broad assessment of the empiricalrelationship between income and stunting reduction at theaggregate level across countries, the subsequent chaptersfocus on country specific policy recommendations designed toaccelerate progress in stunting reduction.
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