If government maintains its fight against malnutrition, there will be no case of stunting children in the next six years, the senatorial Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Human Rights and Petitions has said.

The committee was presenting to the plenary yesterday a report from field visits conducted in 14 districts, where they visited families that have cases of malnutrition to assess the impact of several government programmes meant to fight malnutrition.

One of the key findings of the committee is that in most cases malnutrition was due to mindset, where some people either resisted or cared less about initiatives meant to ensure nutritious feeding.

The campaigns

In September, last year, the Ministry of Health launched a campaign dubbed "1000 Days” to fight against malnutrition (during 1000-day period) right from pregnancy through to the first two years of a child’s life.

This period is critical to a child's long-term mental and physical development.

The goal of the campaign is to improve the nutrition status of the vulnerable population such as children under five years, pregnant and lactating mothers as well as school going children.

It is an ongoing national initiative to run for 1,000 days expected to reach all households in the country.

The committee chairperson, Thérèse Kagoyire Bishagara, told the Senate that causes of malnutrition were almost similar in some places visited.

"Out of 14 districts we visited, residents in 10 of them still resisted national initiatives against malnutrition. In four districts we discovered a problem of inadequate knowledge about balanced diet and cases of malnutrition related to poverty,” said Bishagara.

She made the remarks after presenting a documentary made by her committee on the general status of malnutrition.

The Demographic Health Survey (DHS) 2010 reported that stunting children were 215,604 (14 per cent of the malnourished children) in the country.

"This year, figures have gone down to 11,645 (1 per cent). If government intensified its campaigns or maintain the momentum, we will not have any case of chronic malnutrition by 2020,” Bishagara said.

Immediate response

She cited other causes of malnutrition as polygamy, poor family planning, and parental negligence, among others.

"The government should invest in training community health workers on issues of malnutrition. We can’t be waiting for the DHS that comes after five years to know the status of malnutrition,” said Bishagara.

As part of the recommendations the senator also called for intensification of awareness campaigns and asked districts to draw long-term plans of eliminating malnutrition.

Senate vice-president Jeanne d’Arc Gakuba said addressing malnutrition requires sanitation campaigns, noting that the state of hygiene needed more attention.

"A child who is dirty will always contaminate their food when eating, that is why children’s sanitation needs special attention,” said Gakuba.

Senator Jean Damascene Ntawukuriryayo said polygamy and lack of family planning affects feeding patterns in some families.

"Cases of polygamy were reported in all districts and yet it’s illegal. In a polygamous setting, there is less attention given to a child; this is something we should as well eliminate,” Ntawukuriryayo said.

Risk of malnutrition

In Rwanda, women fertility rate stands at 4.6 children and it has been proven that producing more children puts them at a greater risk of malnutrition.

"We should also intensify family planning campaigns to ensure people can produce children that they can raise well,” Ntawukuriryayo said.

A malnutrition study conducted last year by government, dubbed "Cost of Hunger Study in Rwanda: Child Undernutrition in Rwanda Implications for Achieving Vision 2020,” revealed that fighting underweight due to malnutrition costs the country Rwf65 million per year.

"The cost of malnutrition is borne mainly by the family with a 74 percent contribution to this burden. An effect on education includes 327,500 children repeating a class and 13 percent of this is associated with stunting. The cost of the nation on education is Rwf 2.4 billion,” reads the study.

The effects on productivity assuming 49 per cent of the adult population working had suffered from chronic malnutrition would be estimated at a GDP loss of 9.4 per cent among the working age population for 2012.

Rwanda loses 11.5 per cent of her Gross Domestic Product as a result of malnutrition.

Researchers say if there were a 26 per cent reduction stunting, the cost would go down and the country would save an estimated $14 million every year.