No Time to Waste
Consultation on wasting in South Asia
Highlights
Asia remains the epicentre of the global child wasting crisis. The region is home to half the world’s wasted children (25.9 million) and severely wasted children (8.6 million). The region also has the highest prevalence of wasted children (15 per cent) and severely wasted children (5 per cent) in the world. These considerable burden and prevalence levels have far reaching consequences for child survival, growth and development in South Asia.
A one-day consultation was held in New York on 16 November 2018 to examine the evidence on wasting in South Asia and guide the direction of future collaborative efforts of the No Wasted Lives coalition in the region. The consultation was organized by UNICEF with the following objectives: (1) to share the status of policy and programme action to care for severely wasted children in South Asia; and (2) to identify evidence gaps, research priorities and way forward to build the evidence base to inform the policy and programme response in South Asia. Members of No Wasted Lives coalition and the Council of Research and Technical Advice on Acute Malnutrition (CORTASAM), researchers and academics joined the consultation. This report documents the proceedings of the meeting.
