The Nutrition MDG Indicator : Interpreting Progress

Chhabra, Ritu ; Rokx, Claudia

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ALLIANCES;    ANEMIA;    BIRTHS;    CHILD DEATHS;    CHILD GROWTH;   

RP-ID  :  29093

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper argues for more nuance in theinterpretation of progress towards the Nutrition MillenniumDevelopment Goal indicator (halving the prevalence ofunderweight children, under 5 years old, by 2015).Interpretation of a country's performance based ontrends alone is ambiguous, and can lead to erroneousprioritization of countries in need of donor assistance. Forinstance, a country may halve the prevalence by 2015, butwill still have unacceptable high malnutrition rates. Thispaper analyses which countries are showing satisfactory andunsatisfactory progress using the Annual Rate of Change(ARC), and then introduces the World HealthOrganization-classification of severity of malnutrition inthe analysis to provide more nuance. It highlights that alittle less than half of the Bank's client populationis likely to halve underweight by 2015. Although the paperuses national data only, it flags the risks and recommendsthat countries take regional disparities into theirneeds-analysis. The paper also argues for more attention tothe other important nutrition indicators, stunting andmicronutrient deficiencies, which remain enormous problems,and briefly discusses solutions to reducing underweight malnutrition.