Global Study On Child Poverty And Disparities (PDF) - Social Policy ...

issues affecting children in Vanuatu. This policy
is accompanied by the Monitoring and Evaluation
Framework for the Vanuatu Children’s Policy
2007–2011 (Government of Vanuatu 2008a),
which was established to assist the National
Children’s Coordination Committee to monitor the
implementation of the Children’s Policy.
Nutrition
Adequate and appropriate feeding plays an
important role in the optimal growth of children.
Inadequate and inappropriate breastfeeding
and complementary feeding practices can lead
to poor health and malnutrition among children,
which hinders their proper physical and mental
development (MICS 2007).
National laws, policies and
programmes
The relevant policies in this field are the Nutrition
Policy (1986, updated 2005) and Breastfeeding
Policy (1997, updated 2005). High-level
government policies such as the PAA and even
the Vanuatu Ministry of Health’s Health Sector
Policy (2009-2015) do not mention child nutrition
as a specific goal. A policy focus on child nutrition
may well be intended as part of the overall goals
of equitable health access and the focus on quality
primary health care, but the absence of a specific
child nutrition priority may be a disadvantage.
The National Children’s Policy explicitly articulates
the goal of strengthening existing health policies,
including food and nutrition policy, breastfeeding
and Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI)
policies and other relevant policies, protocols and
procedures that could improve children’s health,
nutrition and well-being. The Monitoring and
Evaluation Framework of the National Children’s
Policy calls for the nutrition and breastfeeding
policies to be updated by 2011. It also proposes
by 2011 to update and integrate the nutrition
component of the school health curriculum in
both the formal and non-formal sectors and the
co-ordination and strengthening of integrated
food and nutrition programmes at the provincial
and national levels within the Government
(Government of Vanuatu 2007b).
Additional targets include the supply of safe and
potable water in 70 per cent of schools by 2011
(at present, only 47 per cent of primary schools
have access to piped water (Ministry of Education,
2007), and to improve health staff and children’s
knowledge and skills on nutrition through
education programs and materials.
Child outcomes, disparities and
gender equality
Table 3.1 shows that national nutrition outcomes in
Vanuatu have considerable room for improvement.
While the percentage of children who are severely
undernourished (more than 3 standard deviations
below the international reference population) is
not high, the percentage experiencing moderate
malnourishment (2 or more standard deviations
below the international reference population) is
much higher, with 20 per cent of children less
than five years old moderately stunted, 16 per
cent moderately underweight and 6.5 per cent
moderately wasted (Figure 3.1).
Figure 3.1: Children age 0-59 months who are
severely or moderately undernourished (%)
25
20
15
10
5
0
6.8
20.1
Source: MICS 2007.
Severe
Moderate
2.2 1.3
Stunting Underweight Wasting
Stunting is the worst of the nutrition outcomes,
with nearly 7 per cent of all children severely
stunted and 20 per cent moderately. Torba
and Sanma are the regions with the highest
percentage of severely underweight children (4
per cent in each region); Port Vila and Sanma
have the highest percentage of severely stunted
children (9 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively),
and Port Vila and Penama have the highest
percentage of severely wasted children (3 per
cent each), followed by Sanma with 2 per cent.
Differences are most marked in relation to
mother’s education, with much better nutrition
outcomes for children with mothers who are better
educated, by a ratio of up to two to one. There
appears to be no consistent pattern of differences
by wealth quintiles.
15.9
6.5
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