Child stunting–that is, when children are too short for their age–is a serious issue. It is a consequence of inadequate nutrition and health, which reduce the chance that children will develop well, do well in school, earn a good living, and escape poverty. Although stunting in Bangladesh has dropped a lot over the past two decades, one out of three children are still stunted. An important cause of stunting is related to mothers who do not eat enough healthy, nutritious food during pregnancy. A second cause is that the diets of young children in Bangladesh do not provide the nutrients they need to grow and develop. Efforts to further reduce the problem of child undernutrition will have to focus on improving maternal nutrition (during pregnancy) and the nutrition of the child.
The National Social Security Strategy calls for the development of a national Child Benefit Program (CBP) to improve the nutrition and health of women during pregnancy and their children up to age 4. The Ministry of Women and Children Affairs is combining 2 existing cash-based safety nets–the rural Maternity Allowance and urban Lactating Mother Allowance programs–to make a new, improved program: the Improved Maternity and Lactating Mother Allowance (IMLMA) program. IMLMA will ultimately serve as the basis for the national CBP.
Together with the Bangladesh Government and WFP, IFPRI will generate evidence on how to best leverage social protection to improve newborn and young child nutritional status in Bangladesh. This collaborative research has the potential to inform the ultimate design of the national Child Benefit Program. The research is still under development, in close collaboration with project partners.
This study is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
For more information on this study, please contact co-leads Jef Leroy and Shalini Roy, or in-country point-of-contact Akhter Ahmed.