Achieving the MDGs Targets in Nutrition: Does Inequality Matter?
The nutritional status of a population is a key indicator in terms of poverty, hunger, health, education and social inequality. In other words, good health, cognitive development and productivity cannot be achieved in the absence of good nutrition. The first seven Millennium Development Goals are directly or indirectly linked with health, nutrition, and population either as status indicators of health and nutrition or as determinants of health outcomes. The prevalence of malnutrition in Bangladesh is one of the highest in the world. Millions of children and women suffer from one or more forms of malnutrition including low birth weight, wasting, stunting, underweight etc. Today, malnutrition is not only affecting individuals but also its effects are passing from one generation to the next as malnourished mothers are giving births to infant who struggle to grow and thrive. The nutritional status of children and women are not equally distributed throughout the country. It varies largely in terms of different variables like age, sex, educational status, economic condition and locality. Furthermore, soaring price of essential food commodities can compel the people to reduce the quantity and quality of their food as well as change their consumption patterns.
HEALTH
K. M. Mustafizur Rahman
Health remains a fundamental issue on the development agenda. No country can achieve desired growth unless it ensures accessible and improved health facilities to its citizen. As health became a part of development, the first seven Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are directly or indirectly linked with health, nutrition, and population related activities in the World Bank, either as health and nutrition status indicators or as determinants of health outcomes. The world is moving ahead in ensuring health coverage for its population. It is now desirable and unavoidable (Preker et al. 2009).
It is very difficult to achieve the universal health coverage due to the lack of voice and accountability, ineffectiveness of Government, low level of regulatory quality, weakness in establishing rule of law, lack of transparency, mismanagement by the Government, lack of adequate human and financial resources, corruption etc. Additionally, reduction in the subsidy in health sector will make the situation more difficult to get minimum health services for the poor people. Furthermore, soaring price of essential food commodities can compel the people to reduce the quantity and quality of their food as well as change their consumption patterns (Titumir and Rahman, 2011). This is likely to have serious short and long-term health and nutritional impacts on the citizens, resulting in lower achievements of health related indicators.
Achieving MDGs Targets in Nutrition
Does Inequality Matter?
The prevalence of malnutrition in Bangladesh is one of the highest in the world. Millions of children and women suffer from one or more forms of malnutrition including low birth weight, wasting, stunting, underweight etc. Today, malnutrition not only affects individuals but its effects are passed from one generation to the next as malnourished mothers give births to infant who struggle to grow and thrive. The nutritional status of children and women are not equally distributed throughout the country. Inequality has appeared as major stumbling barrier in achieving the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to nutritional status of children and women in Bangladesh. The recent hikes in prices have been impacting on the nutritional status of the country. The escalation of prices of essential commodities have not only forcing the marginalized people of the country to cut back on the quantity and quality of their food but also changing their consumption patterns, aggravating malnutrition.
Policy Brief on
Present Social Context and Elderly Population in Bangladesh
Population ageing is defined as an increase in the proportion of population, which is elderly. There is no universally accepted definition of the elderly but, in most gerontological literature, people above 60 years of age are considered as 'old' and taken to be the 'elderly' segment of the population of a country. In Bangladesh, persons aged 60 or above are considered to be elderly. However, in reality people in this country become older before the age of 60 because of poverty, physical hard working and, inability and illness due to malnutrition and geographical condition as well. The numerical growth of elderly persons is an eloquent testimony not only of reductions in fertility but also of reduction in infant and maternal mortality, improved nutrition, reduction in infectious and parasitic diseases, as well as improvement in healthcare, education and income.
