Support reduce Food Insecurity and Malnutrition among Children in Sri Lanka

The vast majority of hungry and malnourished people live in developing countries under sub-standard living conditions while over half a billion of the world’s population suffer from chronic food insecurity.

Sri Lanka has been no exception to this turn of events; however, its already strained financial situation due to the facts above has been worsened by economic mismanagement. Persistent fiscal deficits, a significant tax reduction package in 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic have meant Sri Lanka’s public debt burden has quickly become unsustainable, while sharp reductions in foreign exchange receipts have combined with the food and energy price shocks in early 2022 to result in a debt and balance-of-payments crisis.

The skyrocketing costs of living have impacted all layers of society and most of the marginalized communities and groups are particularly hard hit; among them, youth, pregnant and lactating women, children, and the elderly face the most severe consequences.

UNICEF in Sri Lanka, in June 2022, stated that Sri Lanka’s economic crisis is a children’s crisis, with 1.7 children in the country having to bear the brunt of the crisis. UNICEF in Sri Lanka further stated that Sri Lanka has the highest rates of child malnutrition in South Asia, and the ongoing economic crisis has only exacerbated the child malnutrition crisis. Moreover, UNICEF went on to emphasize that 7 out of 10 families are cutting down their food intake to mitigate the crisis and children are one of the worst hit.

Since children are considered the country's future generation, their nutrition and well-being need to be focused on as a priority. The current crisis has made a significant and huge impact on the nutrition of the country's future and that was clearly highlighted in the Emergency Needs Assessment conducted by the SLRCS with technical support from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), recently. Without an adequate amount of nutrition and food, their physical and mental well-being is greatly compromised.

The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society (SLRCS), the leading humanitarian aid provider in Sri Lanka has been responding to the crisis in Sri Lanka and implemented school feeding programmes in 119 primary and secondary schools in 13 districts across the country to address the nutritional issues among children. A total of over 16,000 were benefitted from the programme. By looking at the need at the ground level, there are many requests from parents, children and teachers to continue and expand the programme considering the positive impacts such as increased attendance, improvement of engagement in studies and increased weight.