The child malnutrition rate in Bangladesh has declined sharply over the last six years. The finding was reported in the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2019, jointly conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and UNICEF.

The survey has also recorded improvement in many other areas related to health and nutrition, Child protection, hygiene and sanitation.

The rate of chronic mal-nutrition among children measured by the stunting level among them has come down from 42 percent in 2013 to 28 percent in 2019.

The percentage of underweight children below 5 also declined from about 32 percent to 22.6 percent over the same period.

The infant mortality rate has also declined from 46 to 34 per thousand live births between 2012-13 and 2019.

The survey reports that the percentage of children of school entry age who enter the first grade of primary school marked a sharp upward trend from 33 percent in 2012-13 to 61.4 in 2019.

The survey also records improvement in access to and use of toilets, birth registration, ante-natal care coverage, institutional deliveries and similar other parameters indicating overall improvement in child and mother health in the country.

However, the availability of Children’s books declined from 8.8 percent to 6.1 percent during this period. The incidence of violent disciplining of children has shown an upward trend during this period.

The data for the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2019 was collected between January and June of 2019.

The Global MICS Programme was developed by UNICEF in the 1990s. It collects internationally comparable data on a wide range of indicators on the situation of children and women for use in policies, programmes, and national development plans.