WFP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific - 2016 SPRs RBB 2016 SPRs by country | Page 407

Standard Project Report 2016
landslides. According to the Global Climate Risk Index, Myanmar ranks among the top three countries most affected
by natural disasters in turn leading to massive population displacement and destruction of livelihoods, crops and
other food sources.
Myanmar, supported by the international community, has made significant progress in fighting undernutrition in
recent years by achieving the Millennium Development Goal of halving hunger by 2015. Stunting and wasting rates
reduced by 5.9 percent and 0.9 percent respectively in the past six years [2]. The country has also committed to
reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the year 2030, including SDG 2 [3], and has launched the
national Zero Hunger Challenge. But despite these achievements, undernutrition rates in Myanmar remain among
the highest in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Nearly one in three children under the age of
five countrywide suffers from chronic malnutrition (stunting) while wasting prevails at 7 percent, leading to increased
mortality rates [4]. Myanmar has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in ASEAN, at 66 years, as well as one of
the highest child mortality rates currently estimated at 50 deaths per 1000 live births [5]. Furthermore, an extremely
low number of children aged 6-23 months—only 16 percent countrywide—are fed a minimum acceptable