After Nepal met its U5MR MDG target of 54 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011 (Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, 2011), the goal was revised to 38. According to a new survey conducted in 2014 by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), with support from Unicef, U5MR has been reduced to the country’s new target of 38.

The key findings of the study, entitled ‘Nepal Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey’, were released on Wednesday. Covering all 75 districts of the country, with a sample size of 13,000 households, the survey that focuses on women and children found out that the infant mortality rate has also been reduced from 46 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011 to 33, surpassing the MDG target of 36.

Nepal has, however, yet to meet the NMR target of 17. But it has been reduced from 33 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011 to 23 now, according to the survey. Even then, the NMR accounts for 61 percent of under-five mortality rate. Until the NMR is reduced significantly, experts say, the improvements in the overall child mortality rate will suffer.  Reducing the prevalence of stunting among children under five years has also proven to be a difficult task, the CBS survey suggests. In 2011, 41 percent of the under-five children were moderately to severely stunted. That value has fallen to 37.4 in the survey, but is still far from the MDG target of 30.

  Rudra Suwal, deputy director general at the CBS, said that the analyses of the findings would be published in April. “We are in the process of understanding the reasons behind improvements in certain areas and poor performances in others,” he said.

‘No comment’ on premarital sex

The CBS survey had at first included questions on premarital sex. But they were dropped when the women interviewed during the pre-survey were unwilling to share information. “It was a sizeable sample size, but none of the women responded to the questions,” said Suwal.