Scaling Up Nutrition : What Will it Cost?

Horton, Susan ; Shekar, Meera ; McDonald, Christine ; Mahal, Ajay ; Krystene Brooks, Jana

Washington, DC:World Bank

关键词: NUTRITION;    ACUTE MALNUTRITION;    ADOLESCENTS;    AGE DISTRIBUTION;    AGED;   

DOI  :  10.1596/978-0-8213-8077-2
RP-ID  :  51835

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Undernutrition imposes a staggering costworldwide, both in human and economic terms. It isresponsible for the deaths of more than 3.5 million childreneach year (more than one-third of all deaths among childrenunder five) and the loss of billions of dollars in forgoneproductivity and avoidable health care spending. Individualslose more than 10 percent of lifetime earnings, and manycountries lose at least 2-3 percent of their gross domesticproduct to undernutrition. The current economic crisis andits potential impact on the poor make investing in childnutrition more urgent than ever to protect and strengthenhuman capital in the most vulnerable developing countries.This report offers suggestions on how to raise theseresources. It is an investment we must make. It will yieldhigh returns in the form of thriving children, healthierfamilies, and more productive workers. This investment isessential to make progress on the nutrition and childmortality Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and to protectcritical human capital in developing economies. The humanand financial costs of further neglect will be high. Thiscall for greater investment in nutrition comes at a timewhen global efforts to strengthen health systems provide aunique opportunity to scale up integrated packages of healthand nutrition interventions, with common delivery platforms,and lower costs. The report has benefited from the expertiseof many international agencies, nongovernmentalorganizations, and research institutions. The cooperation ofso many practitioners is evidence of a growing recognitionof the need to invest in nutrition interventions, and agrowing consensus about how to deliver effective programs.