Challenges and goals

• UNICEF is helping Bhutan promote safe motherhood by improving health services, training people to attend to deliveries at home, and promoting family planning.
• With four out of every ten children malnourished or stunted, Bhutan is countering malnutrition with immunization, oral rehydration therapy and vitamin A supplementation, and working with the community to encourage better nutrition. The growth of children will be closely monitored to spot malnutrition early.
• Six out of ten children in rural Bhutan suffer from diarrhoea, worms, and skin and eye infections largely due to a lack of safe drinking water and poor environmental sanitation. The plan is to make improved drinking water accessible to everyone and to encourage improved environmental sanitation in all the districts.
• About three out of every 10 children of school-going age do not have the opportunity to go to school, especially in the remote areas.
• Adult literacy is low. About half the adults in rural areas -- most of them women -- do not know how to read and write. Programmes have been introduced to increase adult literacy, especially among rural women, through non-formal learning. Post-literacy classes have also been introduced to keep the new skills.

Figures are based on government estimates and surveys and may vary from United Nations and UNICEF statistics.