Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Phnom Penh: children in urban areas first victims of economic crisis

03/04/2009
AsiaNews.it

A rise in prices is sharpening the country's food crisis. Acute malnutrition is up from 9.6% in 2005 to 15.9% in 2008. The government's goal to reduce the infant mortality rate is at risk.

Phnom Penh (AsiaNews/Agencies) - The rise in prices is sharpening the food crisis in Cambodia, which is mainly affecting poor children in urban areas. This is the finding of a study conducted at the end of 2008, the results of which have been released by the National Institute of Statistics.

In recent years, cases of acute malnutrition have risen among city children under the age of five, from 9.6% in 2005 to 15.9% in 2008. The situation improved in the final months of 2008, and the rate fell to 13.46%, but this was not enough to eliminate the danger of a food crisis in urban areas.

Viorica Berdaga, head of child survival and development for UNICEF, explains that the increase "is large, likely to be significant, and very logical considering that high food prices have the largest effect on those that have to buy all of their food"; in rural areas, farming for local consumption is able to reduce somewhat the impact of the crisis.

The rise in food prices, a result of the global economic crisis, could block the Cambodian government's "Millennium Development Goal No. 4": the reduction of infant mortality. The rate had fallen from 124 deaths per 1,000 births in 1998 to 82 per thousand in 2005. The government's goal is to reduce the mortality rate to 62 per thousand by 2015, but the food crisis threatens to ruin its efforts.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think people's lives could become better when gov't tackle the problem. it could be better, you know. can't be pessimistic all the time everytime gov't is trying to fix the problem they see like the dirty streets we all see here in the picture above where children play in. children should be playing in the playground, not in the middle of the street like this! plus, these children should be in school or something, why are they not in school? these are the kind of question a civil society should be asking themselves, not alway criticising without a thought or consideration! my god, how should i have to explain something like this! it's common sense, you know!

Anonymous said...

1:29aM you good!

Hope ah Kwack Hun Xen can open his one eye too!
If he was not may lightning strike the eye!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Blame all these children on HUN SEN.

How come he can't adopt the "no children left behind"??

Khmer/Thai

Anonymous said...

With Pouk Ah Scam Rainxy constantly stir up trouble to gain votes for the election, everyone is a victim, regardless of a world economic crisis or not.

Anonymous said...

Adopt $$$$!
1-HUN
2-SEN

that'a all he care...folks!