Investigating Nutrition-Sensitive WASH : Nurturing the 'Early Years' of Life with Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene--Evidence and Policy Levers for Bangladesh
Bangladesh made a number of laudable development achievements in the early millennium but can and should do more to improve human capital and the wellbeing of its population. Coupled with impressive achievements in poverty reduction and economic gr...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/348901556196325027/Nurturing-the-Early-Years-of-Life-With-Water-Sanitation-and-Hygiene-Evidence-and-Policy-Levers-for-Bangladesh http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31617 |
| Summary: | Bangladesh made a number of laudable
development achievements in the early millennium but can and
should do more to improve human capital and the wellbeing of
its population. Coupled with impressive achievements in
poverty reduction and economic growth are meeting many of
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)—such as reaching
nearly universal access to primary education, gender parity
in primary and secondary education, ensuring food security,
lowering infant, child, and maternal mortality rates,
improving immunization coverage, and increasing access to
improved water sources. Nurturing a child’s early years can
help nations boost human capital to become more diverse,
competitive economies. Improving early childhood development
requires multi-sectoral action. Advancements in early
childhood development will not be possible without
improvements in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH). This
report will discuss several analyses that demonstrate the
importance of WASH in nurturing the early years. The report
begins with an examination of progress in achieving human
development outcomes, many of which are specifically used to
measure early childhood development and human capital. The
next section will present a poverty risk model used to
measure differences in WASH-related disease burden among
wealth groups and populations with and without access to
basic water and sanitation services. The third section
discusses WASH deprivations in community health centers that
reduce quality of care, and the fourth section measures the
unique environmental exposures from inadequate WASH faced by
slum dwellers, an often neglected yet high-risk population
for poor health and undernutrition. The proceeding four
sections then present original econometric analyses linking
various components of WASH to childhood stunting, early
childhood skills, infant mortality, and school enrollment.
The final section concludes and provides recommendations on
how Bangladesh’s WASH sector can prioritize the early years
in future investments. |
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