RAWALPINDI, Feb 11: The World Bank (WB) has launched a ‘competitive development marketplace for nutrition’ aimed at finding and funding innovative ideas to change the lives of thousands of pregnant women, infant and young children in South Asia.

Malnutrition is the single biggest contributor to child mortality in the world. In no place is this problem more serious than in South Asia, where child malnutrition rates are among the highest in the world. Both child underweight and stunting rates in the region are nearly double those in Africa.

Pakistan also suffers from high rates of childhood malnutrition with 39 per cent of children moderately or severely malnourished, and has not made significant progress over the last two decades. The global increase in food prices is affecting Pakistan as well; it poses another serious threat to the nutrition of young children and women of child-bearing age, particularly among the poor.

Titled ‘Family and Community Approaches to Improving Infant and Young Child Nutrition’, the development marketplace is looking for entrepreneurial organisations across South Asia to submit proposals for local and small-scale projects which have the potential to be scaled up and replicated, a press release issued by World Bank said.

The winners will be selected by an international jury of development and nutrition experts at the Development Marketplace event in August 2009 in Dhaka and will receive funding to implement their proposals.

The South Asia Regional Development Marketplace is implemented in partnership with the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), Micronutrient Initiative, Unicef and the World Food Programme (WFP). The competition is open to civil society groups, social entrepreneurs, youth organisations, private foundations, academia and private sector corporations in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The maximum award will be $40,000 per proposal. Proposals will be accepted until March 31, 2009.

The development marketplace global competition has awarded nearly $46 million to small-scale projects over the last eight years. Using this funding as a launching pad, projects often go on to scale up or replicate elsewhere, winning prestigious awards within the sphere of social entrepreneurship, the press release said.

“Malnutrition affects the lives of millions of infants and young children in South Asia,” said Isabel Guerrero, World Bank vice-president for the South Asia region.

“It saps a child’s growth potential, delays enrollment in school, limits school achievements and lowers lifetime earnings. This competition offers a unique opportunity to channel small grants directly to community organisations and NGOs who present innovative ways to address this devastating problem.”