Child Malnutrition as a Poverty Indicator: An Evaluation in the Context of Different Development Interventions in Indonesia

Prompted by the need for an alternative poverty indicator for assessing rural development interventions due to the limitations of using income or expenditure level, this paper evaluates child malnutrition as an alternative poverty indicator.

Using Indonesia as a case study, the paper found that it is feasible to adopt child malnutrition as a poverty indicator in evaluating long-term interventions. It argues that child malnutrition is superior to income or expenditure level on the grounds of relevancy, accuracy, timeliness, cost effectiveness, comparability across nations, and geographical areas. However, for short-term interventions, its use is limited by the availability of data which is yet to be routinely collected by governments.

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Comment(s)

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1. Choco
   (posted 01 May 2010 / 02:19:03 AM)
   
   is poverty line:
   -less that $1.25/day per adult, or
   -less than $1.25/day per person in the household (including children), or
   -less than $1.25/day per household?
   
   What a loophole in the definition! Clarity required please!
2. naveen
   (posted 17 December 2008 / 08:35:28 PM)
   
   This information explain clearly about the malnutrition and poverty,
   Most poor people who battle hunger deal with chronic undernourishment and vitamin or mineral deficiencies, which result in stunted growth, weakness and heightened susceptibility to illness.
   
   Poor children are the most prone to this and are often the victims to malnutrition, deficiencies, diseases and ultimately deaths caused by hunger.
   
   Today our world is home to 6.6 billion people. The United States is a part of the high-income group of nations which has a population of around 30 crores
3. ms.gilor araneta -tino
   (posted 02 April 2008 / 05:39:12 AM)
   
   Conditions tagged as underweight or underheight has been a problem for a longtime. If we dig further poverty is one cause. I am glad that the schools here in the Province of Albay are recipients of the Food for the School program. In its simple way, this is a BIG solution, RICE ON THE TABLE of every family. I'mm sure that this will help increase the nutritional status of our schoolchildren.