by Piyaporn Hawiset
16 December 2000
For all its strides in human development in terms of economic, Southeast Asia has weak points that can be traced to insufficient investment in the care and nurturing of its youngest children. Worrisome statistics include the fact that 30 percent or more of children under the age of 5 are stunted in height due to malnutrition in Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, the Philippines and North Korea. Physical stunting hampers not just physical growth early in life, but poses obstacles to health, growth, emotional maturity and productivity as adults.
Likewise, nearly one out of three people lacks access to adequate sanitation in countries like China, Indonesia, Burma, Laos, Indonesia and some Pacific Island countries. This contributes to diarrhoea, a major cause of child mortality.
"Economic growth in itself does not do it," Mehr Khan, UNICEF regional director for Asia-Pacific, said of the link between the region's impressive economic growth in the past few decades and improvement in children's health and quality of life. "Economic growth just means some people are making a lot of money, but that money is not going to true development and improvement in the quality of life in East and Southeast Asia."
She was speaking at the launch in Bangkok on December 13, 2000 of UNICEF's annual report, State of the World's Children 2001, which focused on the importance of early care for children between birth and age 3, when most brain development occurs.
"The East Asia and Pacific region is home to one of every four of the world's children," Khan said. "But for all the important progress in human and economic development that it has made here in recent decades, investment in early childhood care is still insufficient and rather backward."
Some 1.4 million children under the age of 5 still die in the East Asia and Pacific region every year -- largely due to preventable causes.
While statistics on children usually touch on physical problems such as malnutrition and illnesses, the UNICEF report and Thai experts who spoke at the December 14 launch stressed that proper nurturing and interaction for the very young is crucial to their development and to society.
"It is not just day care centers, toys and luxurious things, but playing and learning as well. It's every aspect of it -- school, nutrition, the social environment," said Nittiya Kotchabhakdi, director of Thailand's National Institute for Child and Family Development at Mahidol University. Children brought up with their physical, social and emotional needs nurtured were more likely to have self-esteem and avoid problems like drug addiction, suicide and aggression, she said.
"Children with better early care will develop better, stay in school longer, get married later," she explained. "Early health, nutrition and educational intervention improve children's lives."
Usanee Janggeon of the Human Development Foundation in Bangkok said many children lack even the basics of life. For instance, three out of five children in the Bangkok communities where the foundation runs kindergartens for youngsters in shantytowns do not have parents to care for them.
"We don't know where they are. Some are in jail, some have left. What life does that mean for the children? What does it mean of what Thai society has become? Why are these children being abandoned?" asked Usanee, sponsorship and community health coordinator for the foundation that works in Klong Toey in Bangkok.
Children need to belong and to be cared for is also the reason why these youngsters value their community school -- the foundation runs 32 kindergartens with 4,000 children in Bangkok. But although the youngest years are most crucial in physical and emotional development, governments, communities and donors do not always give them the needed attention.
"In a short 36 months, children develop their abilities to think and speak, learn and reason and lay the foundation for their values and social behavior as adults," said the State of the World's Children report. "Because these early years are a time of such great change in a young life and of such long-lasting influence, ensuring the rights of the child must begin at the very start of life," it said.
But Nittiya points to a worrisome trend, saying that many countries have left early childhood care programs to the private sector. The gaps between care for children in the richer and poorer segments of society are growing wider, she adds, because the majority of the families in East and Southeast Asia cannot afford daycare. It is nothing more than a pipe dream, given the economic realities of these supposedly developing economies.
"The protection and nurturing of children in their earliest years must merit the highest priority when governments make decisions about laws, policies, programs and allocation of funds," Khan said. "Yet, tragically, both for children and for countries, these early years are the ones that receive the least attention."
Governments in developing countries spend only 12 to 14 percent of their budgets on basic social services, while donor governments allocate only 10 percent of their development aid to programs and services "which have the most direct impact on developing human potential," the UNICEF report said. If governments and donors made good on their pledges to set aside 20 percent of budgets to social development, this would free up $80 billion per year, an amount that is still less than a fifth of one percent of global income.
In Asia, only 2 percent of government expenditures go to the health sector, while 14 percent goes to defense. As much as 40 percent is stolen through corrupt activities of government officials, politicians and the economic and political elite.
In the end "it is a question of priorities," Khan explained. "In making budget allocations, governments need to be aware that the best 'defense' a country can make is not a large military arsenal."
"What they require for future stability and prosperity is a healthy, well-educated and competent population ready and able to meet the challenges of a globalizing and ever more complex world," she added.
2.6 Million Vietnamese under Five Malnourished
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on the same day over a third of Vietnamese under the age of five -- more than 2.6 million children -- were malnourished.
"Over 36 percent of all children under five years of age, more than 2.6 million children, suffer from stunted growth, and some 2.4 million are underweight," it said in a statement. In references to Vietnam in the global report entitled the State of the World's Children, UNICEF said vast numbers of Vietnamese children lacked access to safe drinking water, sanitary facilities and day-care services. The report also expressed concern the majority of Vietnamese children were not exclusively breast-fed by their mothers in the first four months of life.
"The fundamental rights of small children are often not met," UNICEF country representative Morton Giersing said in a statement. "Greater efforts are needed to protect children during the earliest years of their lives, when they are going through the most crucial stages of physical and emotional development, and when they are most vulnerable. If children don't receive the care they need during this crucial period of their life, they will never have the opportunity to realise their full potential."
Giersing said the Vietnamese government had made some impressive strides in improving child rights over the past decade, especially in immunisation, primary school enrollment and birth registration. The statement quoted Child Care Minister Tran Thi Thanh Thanh as saying quality childcare was essential for children's survival and to protect them from malnutrition, disease and illness.
Giersing said Vietnamese fathers had a key role to play and should be spending more time with their children.
"Since Vietnamese men generally have more free time than women, they should take advantage of this opportunity by taking time to care for their children every day. Bu they don't. Rather they go out carousing with their male friends, play cards, gamble, drink and womanize. It is not an ideal environment for raising young children and does not bode well for Vietnam's future in terms of the quality of human resources."