By Anupama Tantri

This month, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) released its annual Asian Development Outlook 2013, which presents an analysis of economic trends and predicts future growth across Asia. This year’s report focuses on the growing demand for energy and strategies to promote sustainable, green growth. The report also calls attention to an issue that dominated the Asian Development Outlook 2012 report and that is becoming a central issue in economic and development policy circles – the need to address rising inequality across the region.

Over the past few years, the ADB has increased its focus on human development, recognizing that inequality is a threat to economic growth and development. In both the 2012 and 2013 reports, the ADB encourages governments to increase investment in health, education, and social protection to prevent vulnerable communities from falling into extreme poverty.

This year’s report also features a closer look at the links between malnutrition and economic development in Cambodia. The report notes that almost 40 percent of Cambodian children suffer from malnutrition and stunted growth, and cites a World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that, “Cambodia loses $146 million in GDP each year from the impacts of vitamin and mineral deficiencies alone.”

The report also presents evidence-based interventions to address malnutrition, including deworming and improved hygiene and sanitation, as identified by the 2012 Copenhagen Consensus.  The ADB notes the importance of scaling-up government-led, integrated package of interventions for better food security, nutrition, sanitation and hygiene, with the support of the community and private sector partners.

Cambodia’s NTD control and elimination program offers one of the best success stories of the rapid, efficient and sustainable scale-up of an integrated approach to address child health and nutrition. Under the leadership of the government and with support from partners including the WHO, Johnson & Johnson, Children Without Worms and UNICEF, Cambodia became the first country in the world to achieve the WHO targets for deworming school children across the country in 2004. The country is also on its way to becoming one of the first countries in the region to eliminate schistosomiasis and lymphatic filariasis.

Learn more about the links between malnutrition and NTDs through and about Cambodia’s efforts to control and eliminate NTDs in order to improve child health and wellbeing: http://www.childrenwithoutworms.org/countries/cambodia