Attachments
Executive Summary
The Cost of Hunger in Africa (COHA) study is an African Union Commission (AUC) and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency (NPCA) initiative through which countries are able to estimate the social and economic impacts of child undernutrition in a given year. In March 2012, the regional COHA study was presented at the Fifth Joint Meeting of the AU Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance and the ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. At the meeting, the ministers issued a resolution confirming the importance of the study and recommending it to continue beyond the initial stage. Twelve countries have been initially selected to participate in the study.
However, following the Malabo Declaration, passed in June 2014, by the African Union Heads of State and Government, on Nutrition Security for Inclusive Economic Growth and Sustainable Development in Africa, which called for all Member States to participate in the study, and noting the invaluable contribution of the COHA study in highlighting the consequences of child undernutrition, many more African countries have requested to be part of the study. The Kingdom of Lesotho (hereafter referred to as Lesotho) is the eleventh country on the continent and the third country in the Southern Africa region to implement the study.
Methodology
The COHA model is used to estimate the additional cases of morbidity, mortality, school repetitions and dropouts, and reduced physical capacity that can be associated with a person’s undernutrition status before the age of five. In order to estimate these social impacts for a single year, the model focuses on the current population, identifies the percentage of that population who were undernourished before the age of five, and then estimates the associated negative impacts experienced by the population in the current year. Using this information and the data provided by the Lesotho National Implementation Team, the model estimates the associated economic losses incurred by the economy in health, education and potential productivity in a single year. The reference year used in the analysis of the study model is 2014, which is referred throughout the text as “current year”.
During the implementation process of the study, secondary datasets were obtained from the Bureau of Statistics of Lesotho, Demographic and Health Survey (DHS-2014), Lesotho Government Gazette, Central Bank of Lesotho, Ministry of Finance, World Health Organization, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys 2000 and national surveys, while primary data were collected from the Lesotho Central Drug Store, Mafeteng Hospital in Mafeteng District and Leribe Referral Hospital in Leribe District.
Trends in Child Undernutrition
Recent improvements in poverty rates in Lesotho have been accompanied by a reduction in child undernutrition. However, stunting rates remain high. The recent 2014 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) showed a decrease in the prevalence of stunted children by 6 percentage points, approximately 33.2 percent of Basotho children under the age of 5 were suffering from stunting and 10.3 percent of the children were underweight. In 2014, an estimated 88,919 (of 275 000) children were affected by stunting and almost 28,292 children were underweight. This situation is especially critical for children between 12 and 23 months, where 32.2 percent were affected by stunting and 11 percent were underweight.