Myanmar on Thursday joined a UN programme to improve nutrition in a country where one-third of children under five have stunted growth, dpa reported. "Myanmar has the third-highest malnutrition rate across South-East Asia after Cambodia and East Timor," said Bertrand Bainvel, UNICEF representative in Yangon. Myanmar's official entry into the Scaling Up Nutrition movement, launched by the United Nations in 2010, brought ministries and UN agencies together in Naypyitaw, the capital, for a three-day meeting. The programme aims to help governments, civil society groups, donors, businesses and researchers coordinate to improve nutrition, and supports specific approaches such as breast-feeding in early life and treatment of severe malnutrition. Malnutrition in Myanmar accounts for 4 to 6 per cent of all under-5 deaths in the country, according to UN estimates.
