One of the most impactful consequences of living in poverty is child malnutrition and stunting. This is especially worrisome because stunting can result in poorer brain development, handicapping a child’s potential to be part of national development.
According to the World Bank, the Philippines has one of the worst cases of child stunting in the world, ranking fifth with the highest stunting prevalence among countries in the East Asia and Pacific Region.
The Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) hopes to help address this problem with the launch of its campaign against malnutrition and child stunting in the country. “As a business group, we can have greater impact acting collectively in the fight against malnutrition and child stunting,” said MAP president and BDB Law founding partner, Atty. Benedicta Du-Baladad.
“We at MAP hope to expand our role beyond fund generation and philanthropy to a shared responsibility in addressing malnutrition in the country by participating in the programming and governance of nutrition strategies and interventions. It will be a shift from a transactional to a transformational partnership with the government,” she added.
The group committed to harnessing the contributions that various industries and sectors can extend to intensify the efforts towards reduction of child stunting. MAP will reach out to the agencies overseeing the national malnutrition program, such as the Department of Health, the National Nutrition Council, and the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and will pursue ways for the private sector to further support the Philippines Multisectoral Nutrition Project in reversing child stunting trends in the country.
MAP will also actively seek for the government’s declaration of child stunting as a priority national agenda and push for concrete actions to be cascaded down to the community level. Such national support can encourage allocation of budget to the initiative, while resources are made available to reorient feeding programs with greater emphasis on maternal nutrition, babies and toddlers, and form competition policy in agriculture and food value chains, among others.
The group is also pushing for tripartite partnerships among the business sector, government and community for a whole-of-society approach in fighting malnutrition and child stunting and its adverse effects.
Dr. Cielito ‘Ciel’ F. Habito, governor-in-charge for MAP’s Cluster on Resilience and Recovery, discussed the magnitude of the problem and noted that the group’s presence in the different industries would be of help in crafting and implementing timely solutions to the country’s malnutrition problems.
“Child stunting is a major threat to the nation’s future,” Dr. Habito shared. “MAP’s ecosystem is diverse and can potentially muster the collective strength of the private sector to mobilize and help the government achieve the country’s nutrition objectives. As we are among the leading employers in the country, MAP can strategically influence its network of employees in the delivery of support services like nutrition literacy.”
The two MAP officers shared that the Philippine population’s age distribution shows promise, the issue of stunting could also be a ticking time bomb. “If the problem is not addressed in an urgent and decisive manner, we will be placing our country’s future in the hands of stunted children becoming adults whose capacity to be productive, competitive and creative is limited, thus affecting national development and progress,” Du-Baladad said.
