Malnutrition In Afghanistan

South Asia has the highest rates of malnutrition and the largest number of malnourished women and children in the world. Childhood malnutrition is the main cause of child mortality one-third of all child deaths are due to the underlying cause of malnutrition. For the children who survive, malnutrition results in lifelong problems by severely reducing a child s ability to learn and to grow to his or her full potential. Malnutrition directly leads to less productive adults and thus to weaker national economic performance. The negative impact of malnutrition on a society s productivity and a nation s long-term development is difficult to underestimate. Malnutrition is a key development priority for the World Bank s South Asia region. The Bank intends to increase its commitment to reducing malnutrition in the region. As a first step, Bank staff are preparing a series of country assessments such as Malnutrition in Afghanistan. These assessments will be useful for governments and development partners committed to scaling up effective, evidence-based interventions to reduce malnutrition in their countries. Conclusive evidence shows that a multisectoral planning approach, followed by actions in the various sectors, is the most successful method to improve a populations nutrition. Malnutrition in Afghanistan provides the background analysis for the development of a comprehensive nutrition action plan. The timing of this report is propitious. The international communities interest in the developmental benefits of nutrition programming is high. This analytical report is part of a broader effort by the World Bank South Asia region to increase investments in nutrition, recognizing that good nutrition is important to economic growth and development, and because investing in well-proven nutrition interventions pays high dividends in poverty reduction and national economic development.

South Asia has the highest rates of malnutrition and the largest number of malnourished women and children in the world. Childhood malnutrition is the main cause of child mortality-one-third of all child deaths are due to the underlying cause of malnutrition. For the children who survive, malnutrition results in lifelong problems by severely reducing a child's ability to learn and to grow to his or her full potential. Malnutrition directly leads to less productive adults and thus to weaker national economic performance. The negative impact of malnutrition on a society's productivity and a national.

The food systems approach can contribute to food security and reduced malnutrition levels by identifying key investments and policies throughout the food system, including production, processing, marketing, and consumption of food. However, in countries facing fragility and conflict, it has proven difficult to implement such an approach and achieve the desired results. This has been the case in Afghanistan, where high levels of malnutrition stem in part from an undersupply of nutritious food. Multi-sectoral approaches to promote nutrition sensitivity and achieve diet-based solutions have also had only limited impact. This paper reports on an analysis of the nutrition sensitivity of food systems in Afghanistan using multi-sector consultations and gap analyses to examine two key food and nutrition policies, the National Comprehensive Agriculture Development Priority Program and the Afghanistan Food Security and Nutrition Agenda. It highlights gaps in the policies and identifies investment priorities to make food systems more nutrition sensitive. The results show that instilling nutrition sensitivity into the operation of Afghanistan’s food systems can only be accomplished if certain key measures are incorporated into the food system. These include addressing the absence of knowledge in the population regarding healthy diets, the lack of sufficient food for vulnerable populations, weak irrigation systems, capacity constraints at individual and institutional levels, data challenges, and weak natural resource management. In addition, the above weaknesses are compounded by the continued violence and conflict-induced insecurity, weak government, and inadequate investments. Given the role of different sectors in contributing to improved nutrition, appropriate and effective multi-stakeholder coordination and collaboration is paramount to such efforts.

Diet is one of the single most important contributors to health, but also to disease. Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs) provide information on healthy eating and lifestyle aimed at preventing all forms of malnutrition, including non­communicable diet-related diseases and keeping people well-nourished and healthy. The FBDGs is a fruit of joint efforts and collaboration made by mainly four institutions: the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL), the Ministry of Education (MoE), and Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The development, promotion and dissemination of FBDGs for Afghans is an important part of the strategy of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) for improving the nutritional status of the Afghan population. Its realization is in accordance with the Ministry's mission of improving the health and nutritional status of the Afghan people. The aim is to achieve this in an equitable and sustainable manner, through the provision of quality health services, advocacy for the development of healthy environments and living conditions, and the promotion of healthy eating and lifestyles.

The first comprehensive look at youth living in a country attempting to rebuild itself after three decades of civil conflict, Children of Afghanistan relies on the research and fieldwork of twenty-one experts to cover an incredible range of topics. Focusing on the full scope of childhood, from birth through young adulthood, this edited volume examines a myriad of issues: early childhood socialization in war and peace; education, literacy, vocational training, and apprenticeship; refugee life; mental and physical health, including disabilities and nutrition; children's songs, folktales, and art; sports and play; orphans; life on the streets; child labor and children as family breadwinners; child soldiers and militarization; sexual exploitation; growing up in prison; marriage; family violence; and other issues vital to understanding, empowerment, and transformation. Children of Afghanistan is the first volume that not only attempts to analyze the range of challenges facing Afghan children across class, gender, and region but also offers solutions to the problems they face. With nearly half of the population under the age of fifteen, the future of the country no doubt lies with its children. Those who seek peace for the region must find solutions to the host of crises that have led the United Nations to call Afghanistan "the worst place on earth to be born." The authors of Children of Afghanistan provide child-centered solutions to rebuilding the country's cultural, social, and economic institutions.

Provides a detailed look at how war affects human life and health far beyond the battlefield Since 2010, a team of activists, social scientists, and physicians have monitored the lives lost as a result of the US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan through an initiative called the Costs of War Project. Unlike most studies of war casualties, this research looks beyond lives lost in violence to consider those who have died as a result of illness, injuries, and malnutrition that would not have occurred had the war not taken place. Incredibly, the Cost of War Project has found that, of the more than 1,000,000 lives lost in the recent US wars, a minimum of 800,000 died not from violence, but from indirect causes. War and Health offers a critical examination of these indirect casualties, examining health outcomes on the battlefield and elsewhere—in hospitals, homes, and refugee camps—both during combat and in the years following, as communities struggle to live normal lives despite decimated social services, lack of access to medical care, ongoing illness and disability, malnutrition, loss of infrastructure, and increased substance abuse. The volume considers the effect of the war on both civilians and on US service members, in war zones—where healthcare systems have been destroyed by long-term conflict—and in the United States, where healthcare is highly developed. Ultimately, it draws much-needed attention to the far-reaching health consequences of the recent US wars, and argues that we cannot go to war—and remain at war—without understanding the catastrophic effect war has on the entire ecosystem of human health.