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Entries in malnutrition (2)

Tuesday

Jun302015

Small Fish Farming Opportunity Can Wipe Out Malnutrition

Tuesday, June 30, 2015 at 12:01PM

Pioneering work to boost diets across the global South is turning to the smallest of fish. While small in size, tiny fish are packed with nutrition when eaten whole, as they are in many cultures. Often these fish come packed with vitamin A, iron, zinc, calcium, protein and essential fats – all necessary elements to eradicate malnutrition and hidden hunger, especially among women and children.

It is estimated that 684,000 child deaths worldwide could be prevented by increasing access to vitamin A and zinc (WFP).

Iron deficiency is the most prevalent form of malnutrition worldwide, affecting an estimated 2 billion people. Iron deficiency is impairing the mental development of 40 to 60 per cent of children in developing countries (UNICEF). The World Health Organization says that eradicating iron deficiency can improve national productivity levels by as much as 20 percent.

Vitamin A deficiency affects approximately 25 per cent of the developing world’s pre-schoolers. It is associated with blindness, susceptibility to disease and higher mortality rates, and leads to the death of approximately 1 to 3 million children each year (UN).

This devastating evidence shows the need to find effective food solutions to eradicate these nutrient deficiencies. Access to affordable nutrient-rich food is also key to social and political stability. Already, there is serious unrest in many countries around the world because of food-price inflation.

Finding ways to boost nutritional health that are sustainable, low-cost and do not require substantial use of resources will have the best success in the poorest areas.

A number of studies suggest one solution may be eating more small fish. In many countries, these species are eaten as part of the diet, but often not in large enough quantities to address hunger and malnutrition. Small fish species are a remarkable food source because they are usually eaten whole, bringing greater nutritional benefits.

Small fish have a long history in human diets. Anchovies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchovy) are used in many cuisines, for example.

A study conducted between 2010 and 2013 in Bangladesh and Cambodia by Dr. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted, Senior Nutrition Adviser to WorldFish (worldfishcenter.org), found that the eating of small fish in both countries gave a significant boost to daily diets and massively improved nutrition and health. The project, called Linking Fisheries and Nutrition: Promoting Innovative Fish Production Technologies in Ponds and Wetlands with Nutrient-dense Small Fish Species, was supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

People in both countries still currently suffer from undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies.

In rural areas of Bangladesh and Cambodia it found 50 to 80 per cent of total fish consumed were small fish. The quantities consumed during each meal were small but they occurred in diets frequently. Typically, they were eaten whole, with the head, viscera (internal organs) and bones consumed. This meant consuming small fish packed a punch, giving the eater a dose of calcium, vitamin A, iron and zinc.

More specifically, the study found the iron-rich Mekong flying barb (Esomus longimanus) (http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/169546/0) – eaten as part of a meal of rice and sour soup with its head intact in Cambodia – could provide 45 per cent of the daily iron requirement for a woman.

Malnutrition is also a serious problem in Bangladesh. Half the population lives below the poverty line and diets are poor in delivering necessary vitamins and minerals. This is damaging to peoples’ physical and mental health.

The study found existing fish aquaculture methods in Bangladesh were inefficient. But new technologies provide an opportunity to increase the quantity of fish harvested and increase household incomes. By using highly efficient low-risk polyculture systems – basically combining small, nutrient-dense fish with high-value fish such as carp or freshwater prawn – it is possible to significantly increase the quantity of fish produced.

Another one of the new techniques includes increasing pond depth, which conserves broodfish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broodstock). Broodfish are the mature fish used for the production of eggs or sperm and are also called spawners.

The study estimated a production of 10 kilograms per pond per year of fish spread across the 4 million small ponds in Bangladesh has the potential to meet the recommended dietary intake for 6 million children in the country.

The work in Bangladesh to boost the production of small fish has inspired similar initiatives in Sunderbans, West Bengal, India and in Terai, Nepal. Initiatives in Cambodia and Kenya have also developed meals for young children by combining powdered rice or maize with small fish.

And in Africa, some are calling for more use of aquaculture as an alternative to dwindling fish sources. For sub-Saharan Africans, fish can make up 22 per cent of the protein in their diet.

As populations on the continent quickly rise, marine fisheries are beginning to be over-exploited. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and WorldFish are calling for an aquaculture revolution on the continent to move away from the old approach of just using ponds located on farms. To make a real impact, both organizations argue, there needs to be a partnership between smallholder farmers and others to build a commercial fish farming sector.

“Per capita fish supplies in Africa are dwindling,” Malcolm Beveridge, director for aquaculture at WorldFish, one of the 15 CGIAR research centers (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research) (http://www.cgiar.org/cgiar-consortium/research-centers/), that generate and disseminate knowledge, technologies, and policies for agricultural development. “In Malawi, they fell from 10 kilograms to 6 kilograms per person between 1986 and 2006. Aquaculture has the potential to increase supplies of this affordable nutritious food for poor and vulnerable consumers,” he told The Guardian.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: July 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

Follow @SouthSouth1

Google Books: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rvVcAwAAQBAJ&dq=development+challenges+july+2013&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidSouth1/development-challenges-july-2013-issue

Southern Innovator Issue 1: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q1O54YSE2BgC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 2: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Ty0N969dcssC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 3: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=AQNt4YmhZagC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 4: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9T_n2tA7l4EC&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Southern Innovator Issue 5: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6ILdAgAAQBAJ&dq=southern+innovator&source=gbs_navlinks_s

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David South |

Turning Street Children into Entrepreneurs

Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 11:23AM

The UN estimates that 500 million people around the world are homeless, and UNICEF estimates India alone has 11 million homeless children on its streets (though it is difficult to pin down the figure). In order to survive another day, these children will work in one way or another. While there are many campaigns to ban children from working, and charities dedicated to getting them off the streets and into shelter, the raw fact remains: many of these children slip through the cracks and remain vulnerable, poor and neglected.

Most street children suffer from malnutrition, hunger, health problems, and abuse. They make ends meet by working various jobs or by stealing. While they have dreams, there is no mechanism for them to save for the future. It is a live-for-now existence that, if they survive to adulthood, means they will probably remain homeless and vulnerable.

Street and working children have money: it is a natural consequence of having to be resourceful to survive. But what they don’t have is access to banking services or trustworthy financial advice that can help them to gain wealth and move out of poverty and into a brighter future.

The Children’s Development Bank in India is one initiative that seeks to turn these neglected children into the next generation of entrepreneurs. The bank works on banking and co-operative principles, where savers are members and joint owners of the bank. Any child can save money with the bank and earn interest, as well as take out loans if they are over 15 years old. It was started in 2001 and was inspired by the Youth Bank in the UK. Interest made by the bank is shared by its members, as with many co-operative banks and credit unions.

The bank is managed jointly by children and adults. The children have a say in how the bank is run and on what conditions it should lend money. They also keep an eye on borrowers to prevent them from running off without repaying loans.

For these vulnerable children, it has many advantages: they can put money aside without fear of it being stolen or lost, save for important things like clothes, or pay for their education.

A key part of the bank’s mandate is helping the children build entrepreneurial skills for business. Mentors help the children choose a business model, select an occupation with minimal risk and more benefits, get training and solve business problems.

The bank has branches in India, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka.

Ten-year-old Deepak Prahlad, a street child in Delhi, dreams of being a doctor.

“I know what it takes to be a doctor. I need to study hard and need to save a lot of money,” he told the Hindustan Times. For now, he works as a rag picker but has started saving 30 to 40 rupees a day in the Children’s Development Bank. The bank has 1,300 members in the city. It pays 3.5 per cent interest on savings accounts.

“Some of them want to fly very high,” said Rita Panicker, who helped set up the bank in 2001. “We have been working with street children for the past two decades. Some of these children are very talented and have entrepreneur qualities. One of the biggest problems facing these children was that they did not have a safe place to keep their hard-earned money. In fact, it was the children who came up with the idea of the children’s bank. It started with 20 members in 2001 – and now it has 1,300 members in Delhi.”

Sudesh, a 15-year-old manager who looks after the bank’s current accounts, said: “We are extremely careful about whom to offer loans since we do not want to see our members’ savings lost because of bad loans. The skills I have learnt here are going to stand me in good stead in life.” Managers are chosen every six months by the children and they compete for the job.