Sri Lanka Calls for Action to Improve Nutrition

Joint News Release

Sri Lanka, October 8, 2008:  A national seminar titled “Nutrition today, Future Response,” held on October 3, in Colombo, put forward recommendations on how to improve Sri Lanka’s nutrition status. The audience heard from the Ministry of Health Care and Nutrition presenting its National Nutrition Policy and National Nutrition Action Plan, and the World Bank, who launched the report Malnutrition in Sri Lanka.    

The nutritional status of Sri Lankans has improved during the last 50 years, but there is a need to strengthen the coverage and the quality of nutrition intervention programs. Sri Lanka is on track to achieve several of the health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) however, malnutrition remains a challenge, posing the twin burdens of both under-nutrition and obesity.  “The need to address this has been recognized by the Government of Sri Lanka and the focus will be on integrating nutrition with other sectoral activities, including health, agriculture, education, economic reform, and rural development,” stated the Honorable Minister of Healthcare and Nutrition Nimal Siripala De Silva.

The recently completed Demographic and Health Survey 2006/7 (DHS 2006/7) showed that 22 percent of Sri Lankan children below five years of age are underweight, 18 percent being too short (stunted), and 15 percent too thin (wasted) as measured by weight for height.  There is an improvement, when you compare these figures with figures in 1987, when38 percent of children under five were underweight, and 28 percent stunted.   However, nutrition indices need to improve considerably more for Sri Lanka to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people who suffer from malnutrition. 

According to the World Bank report poverty reduces the ability of the poor to purchase nutritious food and maintain a balanced diet. While poverty is traditionally measured in terms of income, it is often manifested as under-nutrition and hunger. Although under-nutrition, is greater among the poorer population groups, it persists among children of wealthy households in urban areas. 

However, Sri Lanka has a growing number of overweight people among the higher income groups leading to higher incidence of diabetes, cardio-vascular diseases, strokes and certain types of malignancies. This has resulted in the seeming paradox of under-nutrition and over-nutrition. 

“The issue is not just one of food or poverty.  It has to do with socio-cultural factors and household behaviors, including gender issues,” said Naoko Ishii, World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka. “With strong political will, and community-based interventions, there is no reason why Sri Lanka cannot control malnutrition as effectively as it has dealt with other health challenges."

A National Nutrition Surveillance System will commence for the first time under the National Nutrition Action Plan that will use secondary data from many other sectors in addition to the health sector. “This data will provide timely and relevant information to implement the correct interventions in the most nutritionally vulnerable 30 Divisional Secretary areas in Sri Lanka,” said Dr. Athula Kahandhaliyanage, Secretary Ministry of Health care and Nutrition.  

The World Bank report recommends following combination of strategies to improve the country’s  nutrition status: (a) Poverty reduction strategies specifically designed to reduce income inequalities; (b) Strategies to improve access to safe water and sanitation (and good hygiene behaviors); (c) Strategies to reduce food insecurity, especially among the poor in the plantation sector and in rural areas; and (d) Strategies to scale-up direct nutrition interventions through the health sector that would help to fast-track the improvements in nutrition outcomes.

The report also points out that a very basic, well-targeted package of nutrition services through a multi-sectoral approach to develop institutional capacity, monitor and evaluate will improve the nutrition level of people.

“Malnutrition is not only the result of poverty, but also a cause of it,” said Dr. Sundararajan Gopalan, Senior Health, Nutrition and Population Specialist, World Bank, “Under-nutrition leads to reduced educability and productivity, and causes many health problems.   Nutrition programs thus make sense from an economic as well as a social perspective.  It is not a question of whether Sri Lanka can afford to invest in nutrition programs; rather, it is whether she can afford not to.”

Staff from the Ministry of Health care and Nutrition and the World Bank, and nutrition experts in government, academia, non-governmental organizations, policy institutes, and UN agencies participated at the seminar.