This paper uses Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data to analyse the evolution and determinants of children’s nutritional status in Kenya using descriptive and econometric methods. Our findings suggest that if Kenya is to reduce the current high rates of malnutrition as stipulated in the strategic health objectives and the millennium development goals, policies and strategies for poverty alleviation, promotion of post secondary education for women and provision of basic preventive health care are critical issues which need to be pursued because they have a big impact on children’s nutritional status. Decomposition results indicate that there are significant unexplained differentials in chronic malnutrition between the two years.
Poverty and health
Evolution and determinants of non-monetary indicators of poverty in Kenya: Children's nutritional status 1998-2003
Kabubo-Mariara J, Ndenge GK, Mwabu DK: World Institute for Development Economic Research (WIDER)
Lifelong consequences of early childhood undernutrition: Illustrations of impact on human capital formation in Zimbabwe
Alderman H, Hoddinott J, Kinsey B: World Institute for Development Research (WIDER), 2006
This paper examines the impact of undernutrition among preschool children on subsequent human capital formation in rural Zimbabwe. We use a maternal fixed effects – instrumental variables (MFE-IV) estimator with a long-term panel data set. Representations of civil war and drought 'shocks' are used to identify differences in preschool nutritional status across siblings. Improvements in height-for-age in preschoolers are associated with increased height as young adults and the number of grades of schooling completed. Had the median pre-school child in this sample had the stature of a median child in a developed country, by adolescence, s/he would be 3.4 centimeters taller, had completed an additional 0.85 grades of schooling and would have commenced school six months earlier.
Building public services for poverty reduction
Emmett B, Green D, Laws M, et al: Oxfam , 2006
This report highlights how building strong public services is key to transforming the lives of people living in poverty. The authors show that developing countries will only achieve healthy and educated populations if their governments take responsibility for providing essential services.
Burundi: Hospital officials detain hundreds of insolvent patients
Human Rights Watch, 7 September 2006
Burundian state hospitals are reported to routinely detain patients who are unable to pay their hospital bills, the Human Rights Watch and the Burundian Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons said in a report released in September. The patients can be detained for weeks or even months in abysmal conditions. This practice is reported to highlight broader problems of the health system in Burundi, where patients have to pay for their own treatment. The organisations called on the Burundian government to end the practice and to make access to health care for all Burundians a central part of its new Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.
Causing hunger: An overview of the food crisis in Africa
Oxfam Briefing Paper 91, July 2006
For people to be hungry in Africa in the 21st century is neither inevitable nor morally acceptable. The world’s emergency response requires an overhaul so that it delivers prompt, equitable, and effective assistance to people suffering from lack of food. More fundamentally, governments need to tackle the root causes of hunger, which include poverty, agricultural mismanagement, conflict, unfair trade rules, and the unprecedented problems of HIV/AIDS and climate change. The promised joint effort of African governments and donors to eradicate poverty must deliver pro-poor rural policies that prioritise the needs of marginalised rural groups such as small-holders, pastoralists, and women.
Report reveals global slum crisis
BBC News International, 16 June 2006
Slum-dwellers who make up a third of the world's urban population often live no better, if not worse, than rural people, a United Nations report says. Anna Tibaijuka, head of the UN Habitat agency, urged governments and donors to take more seriously the problems of at least a billion people. The report provides an overview of different countries across the world, and highlights the relevance of this growing problem; for example, with respect to the health of these communities.
Rethinking the economic costs of malaria at the household level: Evidence from applying a new analytical framework in rural Kenya
Chuma JM, Thiede M, Molyneux CS: Malaria Journal 5:76, 31 August 2006
Malaria imposes significant costs on households and the poor are disproportionately affected. However, cost data are often from quantitative surveys with a fixed recall period. They do not capture costs that unfold slowly over time, or seasonal variations. Few studies investigate the different pathways through which malaria contributes towards poverty. In this paper, a framework indicating the complex links between malaria, poverty and vulnerability at the household level is developed and applied using data from rural Kenya.
Reaching the poor with health, nutrition and population services: What works, what doesn't and why?
Gwatkin D, Wagstaff A, Yazbeck A: The World Bank, December 2005
This 350-page volume features eleven of the "Reaching the Poor Programme"-commissioned studies, along with introductory chapters explaining why the studies were undertaken, how they were done, and what they found. The book marshals the available evidence about pro-poor strategies that have proven to be effective and that can help in the development of programs to better assist disadvantaged groups. In doing so, it can serve as a resource for policy makers, development practitioners, and policy analysts concerned with health conditions among the poor.
Poor communities need better municipal management - HSRC review
South Africa Local Government briefing, July 2006
The free basic water policy is being unevenly implemented and greater attention needs to be given to meeting the needs of the rural poor and those in poor peri-urban communities who would most benefit from its provision, concludes an HSRC report which examines the extent to which the response to the cholera epidemic of 2000/1 has led to sustained provision of safe water and improved sanitation to the poor. The original report suggests there is a clear relationship between cost recovery, indifferent municipal management leading to interruptions in supply, and vandalism.
Further details: /newsletter/id/31664
Poverty dynamics, violent conflict and convergence in Rwanda
Justino P, Verwimp P: Households in Conflict Network, The Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, 5 July 2006
This study examines the impact of the civil war and genocide in 1990s Rwanda on household income and poverty dynamics, particularly the transitory nature of poverty. Main findings of the study include previously land-rich, income non-poor households have fared badly over the decade spanning the conflict - the economic wellbeing and welfare of the surviving household members has deteriorated, and female-headed households have been trapped in poverty - they are more likely to be poor and when poor are less likely to move out of poverty, therefore they should be the prime beneficiaries of development aid.