Child malnutrition in Nepal has reached ‘alarming’ levels since aid cuts, survey finds | Global development

Child malnutrition in Nepal has reached “alarming” levels, according to the country’s largest ever survey of children under five.

The new figures come about a year after former US flagship USAID, which was shut down by the Trump administration in 2025, stopped funding work for child nutrition in Nepal.

A senior Nepalese nutritionist who runs programs in the country canceled by US aid cuts says he is concerned that hard-won gains in reducing child deaths over the past 20 years are at risk.

“If you are malnourished, your risk of dying is 12 times higher than a child who is not malnourished,” said Pooja Pandey Rana. “What we see is [an] Alarming rate of acute malnutrition in Nepal.”

More than a million children aged six months to five were weighed and measured as part of a government screening program that ran for three weeks in May.

The World Health Organization considers wasting rates of 10 percent or more, which is the percentage of children who are underweight for their height, as “high” and suggests that urgent intervention is needed.

The survey found rates as high as 12.3% in the state of Madhesh, near the border with India. Here, 24.2 percent of children were classified as underweight; This means that they are underweight for their age.

Overall, 7.8% of children suffered from wasting, 1.6% suffered from severe wasting, while 17.4% were underweight.

Helen Keller International Nepal Country Director Pandey Rana said screening had reached only half of the country’s children in relevant age groups, and rates in remote areas could be even higher.

Nepal had become the leading country in reducing under-five mortality rates. Decreased by 72% between 1996 and 2022. Pandey Rana said: “Our concern is that we are going backwards now.”

Beyond the immediate risk to a child’s life from malnutrition, which compromises the immune system, he also noted research. attributed this to worse school performance and productivity increased as we got older.

Helen Keller International would receive $72 million from USAID over five years, starting in 2025, to deliver nutrition programs covering nearly 9 million people in 48 regions.

It was only able to match a fraction of that funding and raised just under $5 million from other donors, reaching 223,000 people in nine counties.

The government of Nepal is purchasing the country’s stocks of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), a nutrient-rich, high-calorie paste that can treat malnourished children. But much of the community outreach, such as health workers going door-to-door to identify children in need of treatment, was funded by aid and has been halted by U.S. cuts.

“We saw this suddenly, suddenly [halt]Pandey Rana said: “In the last 14 months, we have seen this collapse of systems where you have RUTF but no families coming. You have services but there is no one to direct or follow up.”

He said reducing malnutrition requires an integrated approach that includes working on gender equality because of the links between women’s empowerment and the health of their children and access to clean, safe water.

“Increasing prices also make things difficult,” he said. “Prices have really increased; For example, we promote eggs as a very healthy and nutritious food. The price of two eggs is equal to one kilogram of rice… If you are a family facing food shortage, what would you choose?”

While differences in methodology mean comparisons with previous surveys are difficult, Pandey Rana said the figures were “definitely” higher than 14 months ago. 2025 survey We put the national wasting rate among under-fives at 6.6%.

He said malnutrition was competing with other health priorities, such as vaccination, for local government funding.

A Unicef ​​spokesperson in Nepal said: “Supplies are still insufficient to meet the overall demand for treatment.”

They said only 35 per cent of children under five affected by wasting were currently receiving treatment.