Child malnutrition persists throughout southern Iraq.
According to a report by two United Nations agencies, the improving humanitarian conditions in the north can be attributed to the success of UN run food distribution programs. However, the UN reforms to the Oil for Food Program, which removed a ceiling on the amount of oil Iraq could export, have not benefitted or prevented further malnutrition in the south, says the report. Rural school children in the south suffer from iron deficiency and anemia, says the report. Drought in Iraq has decreased cereal production by some 47 percent below 1999 levels, according to the report. The malnutrition in central and southern Iraq is not a result of minimum calorie intake not being met, but rather inadequate nutritional balance, says the report.