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The South Asia Declaration

on Empowering Women

New Delhi: December 14, 2007

Forum Press Release

Over 80 delegates from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka called on SAARC to recognize infant and young child feeding, with particular focus on early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding as the most important interventions for reducing infant and child mortality, and support women in the practice of these interventions.

The South Asia Declaration on Empowering Women for optimal infant and young child feeding was developed during the 3-day South Asia Breastfeeding Partners Forum-4 held in Delhi from December 10^th to 12^th.  In his message to the Forum, the Prime Minister stated: “The challenges of malnutrition that India is facing need to be addressed on a war‑footing. In this connection, it is important to focus on foetal under‑nourishment and child rearing practices. It is important for mothers to understand the importance of breast milk as both a source of nutrition and for building immunity in the child.”

The Forum was jointly hosted by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Breastfeeding Promotion Network of India , and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) Asia, with support from Planning Commission of India, UNICEF, WHO-India, SIDA (Swedish International Development Agency), Netherlands Ministry of Cooperation and Development (DGIS) and World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action.

At its inauguration, Dr. Syeda Hameed, Member, Planning Commission, in her keynote address, informed of the steps being taken in the 11^th Plan to improve optimal infant and young child feeding practices, including a scheme to benefit poor pregnant and lactating mothers financially, to enable them to practice exclusive breastfeeding.

The participants spent three days examining the kinds of support that women in the South Asian region need to feed their children optimally, devised national plans of actions to take this forward, and issued a call to SAARC as well as member nations to take action to immediately universalize early and exclusive breastfeeding and appropriate complementary feeding.

Research, both national and international is increasingly showing that optimal infant and young child feeding is the single most important intervention to reduce infant and young child mortality as well as reduce malnutrition.

South Asia has the highest number of under-five deaths and under-five underweight children in the world. Out of total of 146 million under-five under weight children 70 million are in South Asia (UNICEF 2006). In South Asia, more than 1,400,000 babies are estimated to die during first month of life, and another 2,200,000 babies die during 2 to-12 months. In India alone, about 1,100,000 babies die during first month of life, and about 500,000 die during 2 to 12 months. Although there is a marked improvement in the reduction of child mortality in the whole world, South Asian countries are lagging behind.

Neonatal infections, asphyxia and low birth weight are the common causes of neonatal deaths. 55% diarrhoeal disease and 53% lower respiratory tract infection related deaths during first six months of life are attributed due to sub-optimal breastfeeding in developing countries, according to WHO global assessment.

The South Asia Declaration on Empowering Women for optimal infant and young child feeding urges SAARC to create a special task force for this optimizing breastfeeding and complementary feeding, and countries to create National Breastfeeding Committees, national action plans with clear budget allocations, and, in particular, take steps to support mothers to initiate breastfeeding within an hour,  improve the nutrition of pregnant and lactating mothers, as well as create mechanisms that allow them to keep their infants close to them physically to practice exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months.

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