A Promising Future for Child Nutrition?

This ProgBlog article by Robbie Lawrence, Wikichild Coordinator, is part of the Wikiprogress Health Series.

"In June, the Prime Minister will host the Nutrition and Growth event ahead of the G8; we hope Mr Cameron takes this timely opportunity to pledge significant investment in nutrition programmes and show real leadership in improving children’s futures, as well as those of their communities and their countries.” David Bull, UNICEF UK

Wikichild is currently focusing on nutrition as part of the wider Wikiprogress spotlight on health this month. On Monday, UNICEF released ‘Improving Child Nutrition: The achievable imperative for global progress’ which reports that significant advances have been made in the fight against stunting – the long term effect of hunger and malnutrition. Citing successes in eleven countries - Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nepal, Peru, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Tanzania and Vietnam, the report shows that stunting and other forms of undernutrition can be brought down by improved understanding of the problem and the implementation of practical measures that target pregnant mothers and children in the first two years of their life.

According to UNICEF, one in four of all children suffer from stunting because they haven’t had the right nutrients in the critical 1,000-day window following conception. Malnutrition, through lack of both macronutrients and certain micronutrients has long-term negative impacts on brain and nerve development and function, including mental activity, and the acquisition of skills needed to interact well socially. This impairment is often reflected in lower IQs and poorer performance at school (Save the Children). The damage done to a child’s body and brain by stunting is irreversible. It brings down performance at school and later at work, and heightens children’s risk of dying from infectious diseases.

‘Improving Child Nutrition’ builds on UNICEF’s earlier report ‘Tracking Progress on Child and Material’ by highlighting new developments and showing that attempts to improve nutrition programs are working. An estimated 80 per cent of the world’s stunted children live in just 14 countries spanning across Africa and Asia, and by working in communities within these nations, UNICEF and other organizations have reduced stunting by applying a series of steps including, improving women’s diet, early and exclusive breastfeeding and providing minerals and appropriate food to new mothers.

These programs all have common elements: political commitment, national policies and the presence of trained community workers to deliver information and aid. To use two examples of their success; we can look at Ethiopia, where stunting has been cut from 57 percent to 44 percent in the first decade of this century through the implementation of a national nutrition program, and at the Maharashtra state in India where the percentage of stunted children fell from 39 percent in 2005 to 23 percent in 2012 due to the support of frontline workers. 

Such progress is undoubtedly promising, and presents a unique opportunity for future global frameworks to further alleviate the problem of undernutrition. UNICEF itself acknowledges that there is still a great amount of work to be done if the World Health Assembly’s new global target of reducing the number of stunted children under the age of five by forty percent by 2025 is to be achieved. 

More recently, inequality has been a hot topic on the Wikichild, Wikiprogress and Wikigender platforms so we are well versed in the hidden realties that large, all encompassing goals such as this can mask, but it is encouraging that new approaches are targeting individual countries and communities, allowing accurate data systems to be developed that can describe and monitor changes in the circumstances of different population groups.

Furthermore, tools like the Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index (released last week) provide greater transparency and public accountability by measuring what governments achieve, and where they fail, in addressing hunger and undernutrition. Even Duncan Green has commended the HANCI, stating that ‘it could become one of the more useful annual league tables’, as it forces governments to be ‘slapped’ if they underperform. 

Nutrition should remain at the center of the global development agenda leading up to Post 2015. The evidence laid out in UNICEF’s report and the momentum generated by their successes shows that improving child and maternal nutrition is an achievable necessity for global progress.

Robbie Lawrence

Wikichild Coordinator

Which strategies empower adolescent girls?

Following last week’s blog post by Robbie, the Coordinator for Wikichild on our joint online discussion focusing on “The impact of discriminatory social norms on adolescent girls”, I wanted to share some key emerging strategies that came out of this global conversation that took place between 2-11 April. The final report will be available next week on both Wikigender and Wikichild, but in the meantime here is a preview of what you can expect to read in more detail:

First of all, it is clear that adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to a wide range of social norms, depending on the country, the areas (urban vs. rural) and the socio-economic condition of the family. Among discriminatory social norms, participants identified the following: early marriage, female genital mutilation (GFM), son bias, discriminatory inheritance practices, various forms of violence against girls and the practice of female exclusion or ‘purdah’. Such practices discriminate against girls in terms of their physical integrity, their personal freedom and their status, making them more vulnerable to shocks (financial or climate-related) and depriving them of the possibility to take their own decisions as to how they want to live their lives and how they can contribute to their community.

A number of interesting strategies for change were shared:

• Listen to the voices of adolescent girls and create spaces for peer support

• Change attitude through awareness campaigns

• Focus efforts on boys also

• Challenge violence against girls

• Target the gendered dimensions of well-being

• Link adolescent girls’ empowerment with broader development programmes

• Address multiple forms of disadvantage

• Engage with all sectors and all actors

Stay tuned on www.wikigender.org and http://www.wikiprogress.org/index.php/Child_well-being for the full report! We thank everyone who participated in this discussion by sharing their experience, ideas and best practices and look forward to presenting the outcome document at our expert workshop on “Empowering adolescent girls by tackling social norms” in London on 26 April.

Special thanks to our online discussion partners Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Research Network (HBSC), the Department for International Development (DFID UK), ASCD – The Whole Child, the Girl Hub, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Plan (UK) for participating and actively engaging their networks in this important discussion!

Feel free to reply to this post and share your ideas for future online discussions on our platforms.

Estelle Loiseau

Wikigender Coordinator

Nutrition and Obesity Week in Review

This Week in Review blog is part of the Wikiprogress Health focus. See the full range of health articles on Wikiprogress. 

The theme of this Week in Review is nutrition and obesity as part of wider focus on health during April. Highlights from this review include: IDS UK’s new Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index, a collaborative report from PBS News Hour and the OECD on obesity in America, a joint paper on global malnutrition from UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank and more.

*The Institute of Development Studies’ new Hunger and nutrition commitment index is a measurement of political commitment to tackling hunger and malnutrition in 45 developing countries. The index was created to provide greater transparency and public accountability by measuring what governments achieve, and where they fail, in addressing hunger and undernutrition.

*PBS News Hour has released its first commentary in a collaborative series with the OECD, which explores how health care and health policy in the latter’s member countries compare with the US. New data reveals relatively promising figures with obesity rates slowing in the America, England, France and Korea. However, these encouraging trends show that obesity has become one of the biggest threats in developed countries and increasingly so in emerging economies, as today’s article from the Guardian relating to the growing problem of obesity, diabetes and heart disease in Africa shows.  The article references the OECD’s "Better Life Index" tool, which allows members of the public to firstly rank what they value in life and then see how their own country measures up on the topics they value most.

*For the first time UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank report joint estimates of child malnutrition for 2011 and trends since 1990. The aim of the initiative is to alleviate the double burden of malnutrition in children, starting from the earliest ages of development. To find out more, visit our Wikichild page.

*While it was released last year, the EFA Global Monitoring Report has been an important touch point for preceding publications related to malnutrition, particularly in relation to its effects on children. Despite a decline in the global number of deaths of children under five from 12 million in 1990 to 9.6 million in 2000 and 7.6 million in 2010 (EFA 2012), this drop is not sufficient if the fourth Millennium Development Goal of reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 is to be met. 

In 2005 the WHO reported that more than half of all deaths among children are caused by malnutrition. It is therefore arguable that if governments seek to provide adequate quantities of higher quality food with more micronutrients, child mortality levels may drop to the targeted percentage. Malnutrition, through lack of both macronutrients and certain micronutrients has long-term negative impacts on brain and nerve development and function, including on mental skills and activity, and the acquisition of skills needed to interact well socially.

*A new report by UNICEF to be published next week reveals the high prevalence of stunting in children under five years old, but also outlines the tremendous opportunities that exist to make it a problem of the past. In response to nutrition crisis in Chad and the Sahel Belt region, UNICEF, the Government of Chad and partners such as ECHO have scaled up services and facilities to treat the growing number of children affected by malnutrition. Check out the video below to find out more about the initiative. 

Look forward to more health related articles, blogs, tweets, spotlights and videos over the next few weeks. 

Robbie Lawrence, 
Wikichild Coordinator  

The Wikiprogress Team

Let's talk about adolescent girls and social norms

 "100s of millions of girls are missing because of female foeticide 
- 66 million girls do not have access to primary education and to the
 first cycle of secondary education
- 50% of the victims of sexual abuses are girls under 15
- In developing countries, 1 girl out of 7 is married before she reaches 15
." Lucille Terré (Consultation Participant).

Wikichild and Wikigender are currently running an online discussion on the impact of discriminatory social norms on adolescent girls* that will close on Friday 11 April 2013.

There is compelling evidence that adolescent girls are an untapped segment of society and are essential if we are to achieve future development goals. Young women across the world suffer from a plethora of gender based inequalities created by imbedded social institutions such as: early marriage, domestic violence, the division of labour in the household, restricted physical integrity, limited fertility preferences and unequal inheritance rights (See more at www.genderindex.org). With these discriminatory social norms in mind, we have asked our partners and members of the public to firstly express their views on how such norms shape the lives of adolescent girls by influencing their access to opportunities, resources and power, and secondly, which interventions are the most effective in transforming and in some cases removing them.    

This online consultation has brought to light a fascinating and diverse array of comments, ranging from personal experiences to research based observations from organisations such as OECD Development Centre, Plan UK and ProRights Consulting. We have also enjoyed a strong following on social media with over 450 tweets about the consultation including mentions from the OECD, UNDP and the Girl Effect. Over the course of the discussion, many topics have been addressed and this blog will look at two particular subjects that have drawn attention from groups and individuals.  

Education

A particular focus on the forum is education and our contributors have been discussing how discriminatory norms impede girls across the world from gaining the vital skills needed to enter the working world. ASCD and HBSC who both specialize in the area of adolescent education have added interesting examples, with the latter stipulating that adolescent girls' well-being is linked to the place of women in the societies in which they are growing up. Since education is such a focal point of early development, HBSC cites good schooling as a central component of a decent upbringing. Similarly, the Primary Edu Project argues that educating young girls is a necessity. The project refers to the specific case of Pakistan, where teenagers are encouraged not to waste their time going to school because ‘they are only going to get married, have babies and stay in the house’. Primary Edu stipulates that this ideology must be removed if young women are to have an equal chance of succeeding in life and suggests that change must begin with the parents, who need to be convinced of the benefits that an education can provide. This comment ran nicely with a contribution from Sultana Razia, who uses her experience of growing up in a Bangladeshi village where female illiteracy was more than 90%, to encourage the need to change multiple social norms that discriminate girls, such as treatment in school and the work place, in a bid to achieve gender equality in that area of the world.

Female Genital Mutilation

Another topic that has drawn particular attention is female genital mutilation, and the desire shown by our contributors to have this practice eradicated is emblematic of a consensual desire among them to see imbedded practices, that encourage violence against women, to be removed from societies worldwide. According to one contributor Ousmane, widespread female genital mutilation is still practiced in Senegal, with a higher prevalence in rural areas, and he believes that it will take great dedication to remove this deeply entrenched tradition from local communities. However, he is encouraged by the activities of Tostan, an NGO that is making steady progress towards its abolition through its focus on a community-based approach now being implemented in surrounding villages. According to Laura Young-Sing’Oei, who works for ProRights Consulting, there are many community-based organizations like Tostan, that are finding creative and innovative ways to work with traditional structures to begin to confront norms that harm girls such as FMG. By empowering women, and educating them on the dangers of such practices, it is hopeful that they will go on to protect their own adolescent daughters and in turn set a trend for future generations.  

These are just two examples of the topics being discussed on the consultation, and the really interesting assortment of responses we are receiving. Following the conclusion of the discussion, we will present a paper on its findings at a workshop on "Empowering adolescent girls by tackling social norms" that takes place on 26 April in London! The event will be co-organised by the OECD Development Centre, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the Department for International Development (DFID UK) and The Girl Hub. There are only 3 days left to make your voice heard, so don’t hesitate!

The discussion will close on 11 April 2013 at 17h (GMT+1), click here to read and participate. 

*The online discussion is organised in partnership with the Health Behaviour in School-aged ChildrenResearch Network (HBSC), the Department for International Development (DFID UK), ASCD – The Whole Child, the Girl Hub, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Plan (UK).

Robbie Lawrence, Wikichild Coordinator

The Wikiprogress Team 

Opening the Black Box of Governance: Alleviating Poverty With Data

This ProgBlog, by Rayna St  of Global Voices is part of the Global Forum on Development 2013, that took place  on 4 and 5 April 2013 at the OECD in Paris. The blog discusses how new and innovative forms of data collection can be used to alleviate poverty. 

The constant rise of Internet and mobile phone use is an opportunity to enable more citizens to engage with governance. Technology can help improve citizen participation in decision-making and can re-energise participation in public life. Transparency and accountability is becoming a diverse and dynamic field for exploration worldwide. Opening the data produced by public administrations is part of an effective approach to poverty alleviation. Incredible amounts of data are produced every day, by a wide range of stakeholders: governments, media, mobile operators, citizens themselves. Despite the huge potential for using data about a society or government for the public good, it is rarely released and shared for public use. Additionally, reliable statistics can be hard to come by or are still the exclusive property of government or corporate officials.

The benefits of citizen engagement are numerous, wide-ranging and significant for all stakeholders, as Striking Poverty, a World Bank initiative, illustrates:

"For the marginalized poor, participation mechanisms can provide channels for shaping solutions and holding governments accountable for policies and services delivered. For organizations, governments, and funders, engagement with communities is beneficial in that citizens will support, adopt, champion, and eventually share in the ownership and success of programs."

Does Open Data work in developing countries?

Open Data endeavours in both rich and poor countries often come up against a shortage of technical and political skills that prevent citizens from actively engaging with them. There can easily be a gap between the goals of data advocates and citizens’ understanding of the data. Still, a huge number of creative approaches to collect and make sense of data related to public life show promise that this is the most straightforward way into civic engagement. The Kenya Open Data Initiative (KODI), the first national Open Data project in Sub-Saharan Africa, was launched in 2011. The released data sets (over 400) provide data for socially-relevant domains from education to sanitation. Kenya is in fact the first developing country to have an Open Data portal. In greater Africa, Morocco was first to launch anOpen Data platform. Tunisia followed in 2011 with Open Data Tunisia. Seizing the potential of Open Data for developing countries and the growing number of national ventures, the African Development Bank (AfDB) has launched the Open Data for Africa portal, as a part of the Africa Information Highway initiative.

It encompasses Open Data platforms for the following 20 African countries: Algeria, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Republic of Congo, Senegal, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Although the challenges are numerous, multiple success stories show that the key to using technology for transparency and accountability efforts is to employ a collaborative approach and ensure that tools are user-friendly and quick to offer results. A report by the Global Voices ‘Technology for Transparency’ initiative looking at citizen initiatives for transparency and accountability across the globe found that: Data visualization and navigation tools are a key feature in more than half of the projects we documented, as are diverse forms of data collection from citizens. Approximately one third of the projects use mobile phones in some way, most commonly by allowing citizens to submit or receive information via text messages. These observations illustrate that citizen initiatives are not only directed towards gathering data but also towards making sense of it for the wider community. The projects show great opportunity for well-managed data and related statistics released through open government data programs. The next milestone for governments in developing countries is to solve the problems of data quality and availability, as well as the technical and statistical capacity of staff and institutions.

Opening the governance

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) was launched back in September 2011 when the governments of Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, United Kingdom, United States took stance in favour of more transparent governance by signing the Open Government Declaration: The Open Government Partnership is a global effort to make governments better. We all want more transparent, effective and accountable governments -- with institutions that empower citizens and are responsive to their aspirations. But this work is never easy. It takes political leadership. It takes technical knowledge. It takes sustained effort and investment. It takes collaboration between governments and civil society. Shortly after, the World Bank recognized the importance of the foundational principles of the Partnership and declared its support to the initiative “by facilitating knowledge exchanges and helping to build the capacity of OGP member countries to elaborate and implement their plans to become more open and responsive.” The OGP already has 50 members. Although several African countries have presented their action plans and three of them -- South Africa, Tanzania, and Kenya -- have already delivered their commitments, Africa is still trailing in involvement. The most recent OGP Africa meeting indicates that slow progress is being made, with Ghana and Liberia developing their respective ‘Action Plans’ in order to apply for membership at the Open Government Partnership.

New approaches, new challenges ahead

Is technology the panacea for developing countries? Definitely not. But it definitely paves the way for addressing open, socially and politically relevant questions. Even though the Kenya's ODI has not had much impact on Kenyans, and very few African states rush to join the OGP, these dynamics are irreversible. The very existence of the endeavours described above is a solid step in the right direction.

UN-led meetings on the development agenda that will follow the Millennium Development Goals are recommending a focus on eliminating poverty, reducing inequalities, and addressing the needs of poor people – based on their perspectives. At the same time, they are stressing the need to stimulate economic growth and better manage the environment.  Above all, there is a sense that one can not afford to focus on one goal without addressing the others.  

Rayna St

Watch the video broadcast of the 2013 Global Forum on Development, here.

You can still follow discussions at #OECDgfd and on the Wikiprogress, Wikigenderand Wikichild twitter feeds.