Multidimensional Nutritional Welfare of Children in Southern Africa: A Human Rights Consistent Approach
World Review of Nutrition and Dietetics
|January 28, 2021
Summary
Malawi significantly improved child nutritional welfare, ranking second among five nations. Mozambique showed progress in water and sanitation but lagged in reducing child stunting and wasting.
Area of Science:
- Global Health
- Human Rights
- Development Economics
Background:
- Malnutrition's long-term health and socioeconomic impacts are a growing international concern.
- Evaluating child nutritional welfare requires a multidimensional approach considering various indicators.
- International human rights principles can guide welfare assessments.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the nutritional welfare of children under five in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe using a rights-consistent framework.
- To compare the effectiveness of the First Order Dominance (FOD) and Alkire-Foster (AF) approaches in measuring nutritional welfare.
- To analyze changes in child nutritional welfare over time in these Southern African nations.
Main Methods:
- Employed a First Order Dominance (FOD) approach, treating nutritional welfare dimensions as rights.
- Utilized the Alkire-Foster (AF) approach for comparative analysis, drawing from the Multidimensional Poverty Index methodology.
- Analyzed data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from the early- to mid-2000s and recent data points.
- Focused on four key indicators: stunting/wasting, drinking water, sanitation, and mother's education.
Main Results:
- All five countries demonstrated improvements in national and rural child nutritional welfare over time.
- Malawi exhibited the most substantial gains, improving its national and urban rank from fourth to second.
- Mozambique's progress in water and sanitation was offset by minimal gains in stunting/wasting, resulting in persistently low national nutritional welfare.
- Stagnation or decline in water and sanitation access in Mozambique hindered advancements in its urban areas.
Conclusions:
- The First Order Dominance approach provides a rights-consistent method for evaluating multidimensional child nutritional welfare.
- Malawi has made significant strides in improving child nutritional outcomes, showcasing effective policy impacts.
- Persistent challenges in stunting, wasting, and access to basic services in Mozambique require urgent attention to improve child welfare.
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