On his two day visit to India, World Bank President Dr. Jim Yong Kim is strongly pushing the Indian government to invest in interventions that reduce childhood stunting. He spoke exclusively to The Hindu , a day before his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the importance of getting stronger commitment for scaling up of investments in childhood malnutrition.
What are your reasons behind pushing so hard for more investments to reduce childhood stunting in India?
In just about every developing country, there is not enough appreciation of investing in health, education and social security to result in better economic growth. There is now a much better understating in scientific and economic world that the connection to potential economic growth and investment in health and education is direct. We now know that investing in the first 1000 days of a child’s life is critical. My argument is that government’s need to define very clear goals, and in my opinion, childhood stunting is a very useful, straightforward goal. What we know is that children who are stunted – fundamental structure of the brain is set in the first 5 years. The reason I am pushing to so hard now, is that we spent a lot of time looking at possible paths of economic development open top developing countries. In India, agriculture is becoming much more capital and technology intensive. There is no way that low skilled agriculture workers will be able to compete in the future.
I think it is the right thing to do morally, ethically and I have said that my entire career. But now, it is also the right thing to do for medium and long term economic growth.
What sort of a tangible commitment from PMO are you looking at?
The World Bank has six major projects with the Indian government since PM Modi came on board. We have increased our funding from USD 1.5 billion to around USD 5.5 billion this year. We have multiplied our investments many times and we are working very hard on specific projects. PM Modi has been talking about a new nation wide approach to improve nutrition. I am going to offer to PM my complete help. I know PM Modi cares deeply about investing in children. We have got to know each other very well and we have to now find more resources for India. We have to get companies should work with us on childhood stunting because this is their workforce of the future. There is the CSR requirement anyway. I hope we can reach an agreement
What is the economic cost of inaction on stunting?
Great economists like Prof. Amartya Sen have been saying for years that we need to investing in health and education is important for economic growth. Now, the evidence is. The argument is so much more powerful than it was ever before, based on new information. I have made a proposal to the World Economic Forum at Davos that every single year stunting data will be presented at the conference. I am going to ask people at Davos to look at these numbers. Every year, finance ministers will have to explain to their citizens why their stunting figures at this high and my guess is that very high stunting levels with no movement action on part of the government could lead to a drop in Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). These companies are investing through FDI in developing countries on the assumption that there will be a workforce able to take them into the next generation.
Delhi is a better of state in India and even here, 30% children are stunted. You think you’ll be able to convince finance ministers to make this a priority?
Stunting is so easy to measure. I find that when setting targets, setting a simple target, with simple measuring is always the best. It is my suggestion to the government of India to work with us on stunting. Here is the bottom-line: If you walk into to the future economy with 40% of your workforce having been stunted as children, you are simply not going to be able to compete. Finance ministers like to focus on investing in hard infrastructure. What I am saying is that grey matter infrastructure is the hardest infrastructure- it is also the only infrastructure that will be of value no matter what future economy looks like. Investing is roads, energy is useful but ability to think—the one tying machines/technology will never be able to do is to make judgments based on real human interactions. Every single child is the wealth of the country.
