The International Development Association (IDA) – the World Bank’s concessional arm which helps the world’s poorest countries – will lend Bangladesh $300m to improve its child nutrition and health.
Under the Income Support Program for the Poorest Project, about 600,000 poor mothers and pregnant women will receive monthly payments, through biometric-enabled Bangladesh Post Office cash cards, to participate in activities aimed at the growth and development of their children, said a World Bank press release out yesterday.
The project will provide cash transfers to the nation’s poorest mothers to reduce their poverty, with the objective of improving their children’s nutrition and cognitive development.
To this end, senior secretary of Economic Relations Division, Mohammad Mejbahuddin, and WB country director for Bangladesh Johannes Zutt signed an agreement on behalf of their respective organisations at the Economic Relations Division headquarters.
“Ensuring adequate nutrition prenatally and in the first two years of life helps to maximise a child’s intelligence and brain development, and enables higher level of learning through childhood and into adulthood,” said Zutt.
“The project will help poor mothers to learn how to improve the nutrition of their young children and also provide an income supplement to enable them better to act on that learning” he added.
Despite Bangladesh’s record of reducing child mortality, the country is among 10 nations with the highest prevalence of malnutrition. 41% of children below the age of five are stunted, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The project will reach out to 42 of the poorest upazilas in northern Bangladesh that lag behind in nutrition indicators and is expected to benefit 2.7 million poor people.
Pregnant women and mothers of children below five years of age, from extremely poor households, will receive payments for regular visits for antenatal care services, child nutrition and development awareness sessions, and monitoring of the children’s weight and height.
“Well-designed safety nets can improve child health and nutrition outcomes, while contributing to the reduction of poverty and inequality. The project is a good example of involving local government bodies, as well as using technological innovation to improve service delivery in Bangladesh,” said Mejbahuddin.
“The project will break the cycle that binds poor children to poor nutrition and cognitive deficiencies,” he added.
The project will also focus on strengthening local governments’ delivery of safety-net programmes by setting up administrative platforms at Union Parishads to identify and enroll beneficiaries and ensure timely payments.
The credit from IDA has a 38-year term, including a six-year grace period, and a service charge of 0.75%.
