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Nearly 250 million young children across the
world – 43% of under-fives – are unlikely to fulfil
their potential as adults because of stunting and
extreme poverty, new figures show.
The first three years of life are crucial to a
child’s development, according to a series of research
papers published in the Lancet medical journal, which
says there are also economic costs to the failure to
help them grow. Those who do not get the nutrition,
care and stimulation they need will earn about 26%
less than others as adults.
“The costs of not acting immediately to expand services to improve early childhood
development are high for individuals and their
families, as well as for societies,” say the researchers.
The cost to some countries in GDP (gross domestic
product), they estimate, is as much as twice their
spending on healthcare.
The figures come as the World Bank
prepares for a summit meeting with finance ministers
around the globe to discuss how nurturing children in
their early years will help their countries’ economic
development. The World Bank president, Jim Yong
Kim, has told the Guardian that he intends to use the
World Economic Forum in Davos each year to name
and shame countries that do not reduce their high
stunting rates.
The Lancet series says the first 24 months of
life are the critical time for avoiding stunting. Undernourished
children living in extreme poverty end up
small and their brain development is affected, so that
they find it hard to learn. “Some catch-up is possible
in height-for-age after 24 months, with uncertain
cognitive gains,” says one of the papers.
In sub-Saharan Africa, 66% of children are
estimated to be at risk of poor development because
of stunting and poverty. In south Asia, the figure is
65%, and 18% in the Caribbean and South America.
Mothers need to be well nourished to give
their babies a good start in life and be able to
breastfeed. Families need help to give children the
nutrition and nurturing they need, say researchers.
That includes breastfeeding, free pre-school education
– which is available in only two-thirds of high-income
countries – paid leave for parents and a minimum
wage to pull more families out of poverty.
There are children at risk in all countries,
rich and poor. The series points to early childhood
programs that have been effective, including Sure
Start in the UK, Early Head Start in the US, Chile’s
Crece Contigo and Grade R in South Africa
In a Comment piece in the journal, Dr
Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health
Organization, Anthony Lake, executive director of the
United Nations Children’s Fund, and Keith Hansen,
vice-president for human development at the World
Bank, write: “The early childhood agenda is truly
global, because the need is not limited to low-income
countries. Children living in disadvantaged households
in middle-income and wealthy countries are also at
risk.
“In targeting our investments, we should
give priority to populations in the greatest need, such
as families and children in extreme poverty and those
who require humanitarian assistance. In addition, we
have to build more resilient systems in vulnerable
communities to mitigate the disruptive influence of
natural disasters, fragility, conflict, and violence.”
Wanda Wyporska, executive director of the
Equality Trust, said: “It’s no surprise that the richer
you are, the better your health is likely to be”. But
the chasm of health inequality between rich and poor
has widened in recent years.
“Being born into a poor family shouldn’t
mean decades of poorer health and even premature
death, but that’s the shameful reality of the UK’s
health gap. If you rank neighborhoods in the UK from the richest to the poorest, you have almost perfectly
ranked health from the best to the worst.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/oct/04
