From MDGs to SDGs : understanding progress in child stunting in Asia

At the conclusion of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign in 2015, stunting among under 5-year-olds remained a major challenge in South Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia lagging behind-a phenomenon known as the "Asian enigma." This paper revisits the issue, focusing on progress achieved during the first half of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) era. Using microdata from eight countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia, each with at least one pre-2015 and one post-2015 round of Demographic and Health Surveys, we compare stunting outcomes across pre-MDG, MDG, and SDG cohorts. Our findings indicate that children born in the SDG era exhibit better height-for-age outcomes compared to earlier cohorts, although significant disparities persist across countries. In particular, we provide new evidence of the "Indian enigma," characterized by a persistently high prevalence of child stunting in the SDG era compared to Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Nepal. The paper concludes with a preliminary exploration of policy-related factors that may explain the observed country-level differences in progress.