Children at a kindergarten (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam needs new approaches that are designed based on geographic conditionsand cultural characteristics of ethnic minority communities in order to addressthe persistent malnutrition among ethnic minority children, said a report ofthe World Bank.
The WB releasedthe report titled “Persistent Malnutrition in Ethnic MinorityCommunities of Viet Nam: Issues and Options or Policy and Interventions” inHanoi on December 10.
Addressing theevent, WB Country Director Ousmane Dione saidVietnam has made impressive progress in reducing malnutrition in children inthe past two decades, but the disparity between ethnic minority children andtheir peers in plain areas is widening.
He said priorityshould be given to provinces with highest malnutrition rates in the next periodin order to create substantial changes.
The report foundthat only 39 percent of ethnic minority children from 6 to 23 months are fed a nutritionally adequate diet, and just32.7 percent of ethnic minority women aged from 15 to 49 get antenatal healthchecks, vitamin and mineral supplements as well as nutrition counseling.
The root cause ofthe problem is poverty, the report said, citing statistics in 2016 that showedethnic minority groups accounted for 73 percent of the nation’s poor households,even though they made up only 14 percent of the national population.
It recommended several solutions that Vietnam can take to improvenutrition for ethnic minority children, including building a more effective mechanismfor coordination among relevant agencies under the leadership of theGovernment, ensuring financial resources for the work; replacing one-size-fits-all approach toethnic minority service delivery with more-innovative ethnically responsiveapproaches; and defining and then scaling up evidence-based nutrition-specific interventions focused on thefirst 1,000 days of children.
The government ofJapan provided financial support for this report through the Japan Trust Fundfor Scaling Up Nutrition./.
VNA
