Child and Maternal Health and Nutrition in South Asia – Lessons for India

Abstract

South Asia has been characterized by its minimal progress in the areas of child and maternal health and nutrition in comparison to other regions in the world. The case of India is especially enigmatic as there has been a lack of improvement in its performance in this area since the 1990s. Furthermore, compared to other countries in South Asia such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal, India’s progress towards the achievement of its Millennium Development Goals (1, 4 and 5 specifically) is quite concerning. Despite having their own “local” problems, Bangladesh and Nepal have achieved or nearly achieved many of their MDG targets of optimal maternal and child health and nutrition and Sri Lanka is already in its post-MDG phase. However, as far as India is concerned, the achievement of MDGs seems way off target. The comparative performance of these countries relative to India is of particular interest because they have often been able to realize substantial improvements in the area of child and maternal health and nutrition with more pressing resource constraints.