Before President Duterte leaves office on June 30, the Philippines will borrow $178.1 million from the World Bank (WB) for a project aimed at addressing prevalent stunting among Filipino children.
The latest documents showed that the Philippines’ multisectoral nutrition project, to be jointly implemented by the departments of Health (DOH) and of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), will be up for approval of the multilateral lender’s Washington-based board on June 22.
The latest forthcoming World Bank loan will “increase the utilization of a package of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions and improve key behaviors and practices known to reduce stunting in targeted local governments.”
In a report last year, the World Bank said the Philippines was suffering from a “silent pandemic”—childhood stunting as a result of undernutrition. Stunted kids were smaller in height compared to healthier children of the same age.
World Bank estimates had shown that in 2019, 29 percent of Filipino kids who were aged five and below were stunted.