Author: Alexandrea Crockett

These 18 Organizations Are Building a Stronger Food System Through Agroecology

Agroecology is defined by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a set of agricultural practices that “apply ecological concepts and principles to optimize interactions between plants, animals, humans and the environment while taking into consideration the social aspects that need to be addressed for a sustainable and fair food system.” In addition to providing environmental benefits, agroecology also embraces traditional knowledge and supports community resilience.

On Resilience: Hunger, Food and Disease Outbreaks

March 15, 2020

The current coronavirus (COVID-19) global outbreak – pandemic – may very well have implications for hunger and food security. This would be particularly so in poorer, developing countries where large urban populations may depend on fragile supply chains for food.

We know that shocks – including wars – can impair movement of basic life-sustaining foodstuffs, as in Yemen today. We also know that food is an intrinsic part of how we currently address some diseases. Many humanitarian agencies have published at length about the value of ensuring food and nutrition for African families affected by HIV/AIDS.

Food aid has been important for helping families or breadwinners to self-quarantine after being identified as having been in contact with a carrier of a disease in other instances. For example, in West Africa in 2014/2015, and in Central Africa today, nonprofits and the World Food Programme have been providing food or food-purchasing vouchers to families under watch for suspected new cases of Ebola.

Food aid also helps promote compliance for health care. Often food aid is helpful to ensure prenatal screenings in programs in refugee camps for pregnant and lactating women. As another example, in many countries today, low-income persons with Tuberculosis (TB) find it hard to take the complex regimen of drugs necessary each morning without food also provided, so aid agencies provide food assistance alongside the medical assistance to ensure compliance.

Hunger may also appear as a secondary crisis following the shocks of a larger pandemic. Often in pandemics, ports shut down, trade freezes up, and food does not transport as it had. Any time a city or region is quarantined, it automatically poses constraints to food trade.

Indeed, the food aspects of a pandemic could prove to be the most controversial, posing major policy dilemmas with highly variable outcomes. Many experts believe that the most variable or preventable forms of death due to a pandemic are not from the immediate medical impact, but from the food and social effects. A global public goods perspective of a pandemic suggests that whereas health programs are a win-win for everyone, other goods, such as food, energy, or oil, are competed over and may become scarce.

As of today, the World Health Organization has defined the current COVID-19 spread as a pandemic. From the past, we understand that many pandemics tend to flow as waves. The 1918 flu influenza killed 100 million people, by some estimates, and circled world several times over the span of a year. Health science was so imperfect in that time, and World War I was such a distraction, that the existence of a pandemic killing people from India to Africa to Illinois was not immediately understood. In today’s world, the extent of an outbreak is more immediately tracked and mapped, with the consequence that travel and markets freeze up.

To understand the counter-intuitive ways that markets may respond to fears, consider the large number of people who died in India due to famine during World War II. In 1941-42, a severe famine killed up to two million people in the Bengal region of India. In studying this famine, Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen recognized that it occurred despite a better-than-average local food harvest. Food was sequestered and kept out of retail networks due to an overall atmosphere of uncertainty and anxiety about future events, i.e. an invasion by the Japanese army (which never occurred). This led to a lack of food availability in markets for most of the consumers. The lesson is that events in one domain (war, disease) can lead to market disruptions that can worsen poverty and hunger, and in some pockets of the world, starvation.

The diagram below depicts one scenario of how a disease may pass through a country during a pandemic, similar to the 1918 case. The inner full lines depict the period when it is spreading person-to-person in a particular country – a few months – during a year. The broken line above it depicts the shock wave that is longer as markets tighten and access to food becomes limited. This diagram comes from a USG-funded interagency working group of UN agencies and NGOs in the 2000s, looking at scenarios of how a pandemic might unfold:

Diagram courtesy of Steve Hansch

 

That same study found that:

“The increase in food prices for some countries – those that are not food self-sufficient but depend on grain imports – will be sharper and higher than that seen in 1974 or in 2008, when food price increases made international headlines as a pervasive crisis.  The tightness in food markets in 1974 and 2008 provide some lessons about the dynamics of global food markets, though a pandemic’s effects on food trade could be far more lethal.   Just as occurred in 2008, food trade will become restricted and food will be rationed and hoarded, with the result that food prices will increase for most locations where populations aggregate (cities, towns), though food prices will decrease in rural agricultural areas.  Even if the virus spreads from foci to foci, along lines of airplane travel, or migration, the wave of food panic may be more diffuse and global.”

The study also cautioned that in many locations, as commercial food pipelines break down, stores that sell food (particularly in urban areas) will likely be in a hurry to disburse fresh (perishable) foods to friends and family before the markets shut down to avoid ransacking. If the store owners trust rumors that food transport will be interrupted and their inventories not replenished, they may see an incentive to protect the store itself by closing it down, boarding it up and posting “no more food” signs, rather than face break-ins, threats, or government requisition.

For these and other reinforcing dynamic reasons, food prices may inflate in urban areas many times above normal levels over the first few weeks of a pandemic. For poor families who are already spending their limited income largely on food, increased prices leads to reduced consumption. Most famines in modern history have shown that increased food prices lead to increased hunger and malnutrition-related death.

Experts recommend that key national-level goals are to reduce national panic and distress migration (for instance away from urban areas to rural areas). Therefore, food programs can support leaders by helping them to maintain credibility when communicating to the public that people need not panic about food shortages; therefore, governments need to have some credible back-up reserves of food with which to promise to provide targeted food for the malnourished. Many governments already dabble in maintaining emergency reserves of food. So, when an outbreak—such as COVID-19—begins to spread on the health side, governments can and should begin to quietly store and then allocate food resources to work with civil society agencies, such as the Red Cross, to quickly pre-purchase and move food storage to decentralized locations, to reach the most vulnerable people.

About the Author: Steve Hansch is a WHES Board Member with long-standing association with Hunger Notes.

In Remembrance of Dr. Peter Salama

Many of us in emergency nutrition field were shocked to hear that Dr. Peter Salama passed away last week.  Peter died suddenly and unexpectedly of natural causes. He was 51 and leaves behind his wife and three children. At the time of his death, Peter, a medical epidemiologist from Australia, was working as Executive Director of World Health Organization’s (WHO) Division for Universal Health Coverage – Life Course. Peter joined WHO in 2016 as the Executive Director of the Health Emergencies program, which he led until 2019. Prior to WHO, Peter was Regional Director for the UNICEF Middle East Office.

Peter was a great soul; a brilliant epidemiologist with a strong experience in nutrition. Peter had a commitment to humanitarian work.  I was fortunate to have had a number of interactions with Peter throughout my career. In every interaction, Peter was unfailingly helpful, kind and patient.

I first met Peter in 2000. Peter was working at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta in the Refugee Health Branch.  I was at USAID and asked and funded CDC to send assistance to the humanitarian crisis in Gode, Ethiopia to oversee therapeutic feeding programs with UNICEF  Peter volunteered along with Dr. Paul Speigel. I remember it was difficult to arrange for them to travel, and throughout the stops and starts of this mission Peter was graciously patient with me. It was this mission where Peter and Paul did the pivotal work that changed how the international community ran therapeutic feeding centers (Salama, P. et. al. JAMA, August 1, 2001—Vol 286, No. 5). It is my opinion that this work spurred the innovation of Community Managed Acute Malnutrition (CMAM)

I had several other interactions over the years, always seeking confirmation of some perplexing nutritional data issue in Darfur, or in Afghanistan, and meeting him in the field in Africa. I considered Peter as the authoritative and final word on nutrition and humanitarian data questions.

His death is a loss to all of us, especially the victims of famine, drought and humanitarian crises.

See also: A Tribute to Peter Salama, a Champion of People in Fragile States and War-Torn Places

An Interview with David Nabarro

Margie Ferris Morris and Peter Morris interviewed Dr. David Nabarro on a recent trip to Switzerland. David currently is the Founder and CEO of 4SD, a social enterprise based in Geneva. He has been a long-time advocate of nutrition and food security issues and was the recipient of the 2018 World Food Prize, along with Lawrence Haddad.

 

World Hunger Education Service (WHES): As the world is changing so fast, could you give us a short history of  your involvement with food security/hunger issues – and how you became involved and served as the UN point on Food Security and later was awarded the World Food Prize in 2018.  

David: My career began with public health, especially children’s health and why they were not doing well in early life. This included the child’s life in the home and their well-being. From that view, it was easy to get involved in agriculture and food security. Public health has remained my compass throughout my career.

In 2008, there was a food price crisis. At that time, the UN Secretary General was looking for someone who could coordinate the collective response.  He wanted someone familiar with public health. I had experience of coordinating between UN agencies and was made a deputy UN coordinator, and then coordinator, for food security. I helped the UN agencies to organize themselves on food and stayed in this role until 2014. I watched as the UN developed a much more integrated approach on food and food security – one which encouraged different groups to come together and work in synergy.

During my time as the food security coordinator for the UN, one of the areas on which I found myself focusing was nutrition. There were three quite distinct views on the best ways to enable people to be better nourished:

      1. Working from a focus on health and health care;
      2. Working from a focus on what people eat – diets and the foods on which they are based;
      3. Working from a focus on household well-being and resilience in the face of poverty – the economics of nutrition

Increasingly I have developed the view that nutrition belongs in every professional group.

I joined a group of nutrition leaders from communities, local authorities and national governments; from professional and civil society organizations, from across the UN system and the World Bank, and from bilateral donor agencies and philanthropic organizations. We worked together on the concept for a movement to Scale Up Nutrition (SUN) focusing within the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. We were informed by a special series of articles on nutrition produced by The Lancet, a medical journal. This encouraged convergence of thinking and alignment of action around nutrition and it inspired many to intensify efforts. The movement was not a program led by a UN agency (like WHO or FAO) or other international body. The movement was designed to be led from within countries by national nutrition platforms where multiple actors – from different sectors and different disciplines – would come together for women’s and children’s nutrition. One feature of these in-country efforts for nutrition is that the different actors from multiple sectors would share the same purpose, agree on priority outcomes and align their actions.

There were several features that seemed to be important for the success of in-country efforts. First – creating a “big tent” of nutrition actors who agreed on a series of principles and shared a common purpose: this reduced the potential for different entities to be concerned about who was inside the tent and who was on the outside. Second – ensuring that a diverse set of stakeholders participated in the national platform – not just from governments, but also from the private sector, civil society, and science.

When the SUN Movement was launched in New York at the end of September 2010, we thought that maybe 20 countries would get involved in the early stages. In practice, growth was rapid and strong with more than 60 countries joining, with three Indian States, many donor governments, and numerous businesses, civil society organizations and scientific institutions wanting to be involved.

I worked as SUN Movement Coordinator from 2010 through to 2014. I noticed that countries which engaged in this SUN Movement from the beginning are the countries where there have been significant improvements in nutritional status.

This association was noticed by members of the committee responsible for deciding who would receive the World Food Prize. They were impressed by ways in which the SUN movement widened public interest in ways to improve nutrition while keeping the focus on specific outcomes that really matter. They considered that the SUN Movement is a significant achievement.  I’ve done something that is useful, and so I was awarded the prize, together with Lawrence Haddad, whose science has been really special.

For many people this was exciting, for it is not often that the World Food Prize goes to people who have been involved in the kind of organizational work that created the conditions for the SUN movement. Normally the Prize goes to people who have made a scientific discovery in the lab or in the community.  Many of us rejoiced that an effort to encourage multi-disciplinary action for nutrition had found its way into the World Food Prize. It has been wonderful to be recognized in this way.

WHES: At some fundamental level, what has been the overall achievement of SUN? Not in terms of government programs or money spent, but actual progress that can be attributed to this movement?

David: From my perspective the main achievement of the movement has been that it encourages different actors within SUN countries to come together and work in synergy. As they do so, they increase the likelihood of levels of malnutrition will reduce more rapidly than would otherwise be the case.  In my view, people’s nutrition improves as a result of changes in the interactions between different systems within societies and in how they exert influences on people’s nutritional well-being. I have never held the view that reducing levels of malnutrition among women and children can be directly attributed to volumes of finance expended: system shifts can rarely be directly attributed to patterns of expenditure. It is hard to prove causality though there seems to be a strong association between progress with nutrition and diverse actors coming together around a shared narrative.

WHES: You’ve done so many different things in your career. Where have you done that you personally felt made the most difference?

David: The way of working that gives me greatest professional satisfaction and pleases me the most involves enabling all with an interest to engage and partner on an issue which concerns them all. I spend most of my time helping to create the conditions for this way of working together. I like to create conditions that enable all concerned to engage, work together and take decisions through together focusing on the issue and not worrying about professional, organizational or institutional identity. Indeed, for me this way of working involves leaving logos and egos outside the room.

I enjoyed being involved in the framing of several new partnerships:

  • Roll Back Malaria (RBM) – I was responsible for this effort in WHO over two years (1999 – 2001): it was wonderful to watch as different groups come together and prepared collective action on malaria, under the stewardship of Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO Director General. It involved collective action by many different governments, community organizations, scientific institutions and professional groups. It has been an absolute joy to see levels of malaria mortality drop so profoundly, particularly among children in Africa.
  • UN System Influenza Coordination – I was involved in the effort by the UN to reduce the intensity and consequences of H5N1 (Avian Influenza) outbreaks between 2005 and 2010. My responsibility was to help groups of animal, human, and environmental health practitioners work effectively together. The concept of One Health Working evolved and became a meaningful identity for those who were working on the challenge of reducing the consequences of avian influenza.
  • UN system High Level Task Force on Food Security (2008 -14), Movement to Scale Up Nutrition (2010 – 14), Responses to the West African Ebola outbreak (2014 – 15); Advancing the UN’s work on the Sustainable Development Agenda and Climate Action (2016 – 17). I served as coordinator for these initiatives as Special Adviser to the Secretary-General of the UN.

On each assignment I found that extraordinary energy comes from connecting people so that they will work together rather than their being fragmented into different initiatives. These connections unleash valuable new energy through bringing multiple actors together and encouraging them to establish force fields rather than being tightly wired together. This is a way of working that tends to achieve results while making people feel good. That is one of the reasons why I have also had the good fortune to stay connected to many of the people that I have worked with in my earlier career – we enjoy this style of working and find it to be both constructive and effective. I keep asking myself: why isn’t this way of working the norm? Why is it so common that when groups tackle problems they focus more on what makes them different rather than on working together, aligning and synthesizing their efforts. I want to be sure that there is as much encouragement as possible for those who want to combine efforts for the common good: I just do not know why it isn’t the norm.

One of my priorities now is to take this approach to collective leadership and this way of working and make it into something that people can learn to do intentionally, rather than just stumbling upon it by accident. I am teaching collective leadership for systems change through our social enterprise 4SD.

WHES: With U.S. funding to the UN under increasing scrutiny and attack, what do you see as the unique and beneficial role multilateral actors play in ending hunger and good development?   

David: The term “multilateral” is used to describe the process of national governments working together on massive challenges which affect all our futures – like climate change, the future of food, access to drinking water and disease outbreaks. Typically, these challenges do not stay within national boundaries. They are bigger than any one government can tackle alone: they need the collective energy of leaders working together. It makes absolute sense that there are institutions designed to bring governments together so they can work on the challenges multilaterally.

Over the years the US has consistently supported multilateral efforts by bringing governments together with shared purpose. One example of this approach is the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) which was fostered by the United States and other governments some years ago to tackle infectious diseases crossing borders. GHSA is brilliant because it made it easy for like-minded governments to come together – however, it could be faulted, as it was only a selection of countries, so if there were other countries, which for whatever reason – political or other – could opt out so there was a limit to what that agenda could do.

So, what is the alternative? We could work through more formal structures. The formal structure we have is the United Nations system, which is based on one member, one vote. We have other formal structures that are there for specific purposes, e.g. the World Bank, which has a different governance. From my perspective, however, the United Nations offers the most legitimate institutional base for multilateral action.

Multilateral mechanisms of the UN are not always appreciated by every nation: the UN is sometimes portrayed as flawed and not fit for purpose. Some wealthier nations feel that others are ganging up on them (e.g. anxieties about the disparity of wealth between nations with wealthier countries being asked to redistribute their wealth among poorer ones). This has led to some of the rich countries perceiving that the multilateral mechanism through the United Nations is one that they feel very unsure about. There are some parts of the multilateral UN system that the rich countries are anxious about because they feel that they are systematically biased against the economic and political policies of the rich world.

What I would like to see is greater value given to universal multilateralism with more attention being paid to the misgivings of the wealthier nations, particularly given that through the budgeting system of the UN they are giving quite a large fraction of the budget. The United States generally pays 22 percent of the UN regular budget and has historically paid even more for peacekeeping. It’s no good just saying that the multilateral system – one country, one vote – means there will sometimes be criticism of U.S. policies on some issues that the U.S. and other rich nations must just put up with. We must recognize it is legitimate for those who pay significant sums of money to have their concerns heard, just as it is legitimate in a one country, one vote system for those who disagree with policies of some of the rich nations to express that disagreement. And, for me, finding ways to navigate those political anxieties is key to multilateral working. If we cannot navigate them, we will not achieve the full potential of our multilateral working, and if we can’t do that, then we can’t tackle the big issues of our time.

WHES: What do you see as the greatest threats in the near or long-term future for continued progress on hunger?

David: Over the last three years, we’ve seen rises in the estimated number of hungry people in the world. The pattern is clear; the numbers are coming up because of a combination of the effects of changing climate and violence that involves civilians. In parts of the world that are already fragile, such as the Sahel and several river delta areas, the impact of climate change leads to irregularity of rainfall and salination of productive land. These decrease productivity of land and increase poverty: they provoke fights over resources, and sometimes outright warfare, as we have seen in recent years in the western Sudan. There is a definite link between the risk of conflict and climate change. And obviously if there are not good mediation systems in local communities, then conflict can become violent, and this is particularly likely if governments are going to weigh in on one side or the other, so I do see these as very, very tightly interconnected.

The conflict over available resources is exacerbated by climate change and more likely to turn into violence because of the inability of governments to establish systems for the peaceful mediation of conflict.

I fear there is not really the level of global political intent to do everything possible to stop these conflicts. I think this lack of intent is the most disappointing part, because of the impact on hunger and child survival. To recap, the three major issues are:

      1. The problem of war,
      2. The problem of climate change, and
      3. The general inability of world leaders, through the instruments they have at their disposal – such as the UN security council – to work together on resolving conflict.

Often when member states act within the conflict – even joining the conflict – and that may well exacerbate things rather than improve them.

WHES: What specific program that you have seen has had a strong impact on hunger in a community? Would that be different than an approach that has made a difference at a county level?

David: In my experience hunger reduction at community level occurs most rapidly If you get different actors together to diagnose what is happening and work on the issues together. This way of working needs leadership and willpower. For example, in India, Maharashtra state has a Nutrition Mission. Some districts have fantastic results, other districts, less good results. As I understand it the good results are due to the capacity for local organizations to bring people together. At the central or country level, it is much harder to incentivize collective working and get leaders to consolidate around these ideas. However, there are several policy levers that can help.

I have found that a good collective buy-in is enabling girls to continue education later in life so they are able to have agency and to take steps in local communities. I am impressed by the power of productive social safety nets, such as in Ethiopia.  This has been strongly advanced by the Government and has proved to be super-helpful. When government leaders take a personal interest, then their agencies get involved.

WHES: What are some ways people reading this interview can start to have an impact on world hunger either in their own community or on a more global level?

David: It has to start with having that fire within you. It needs to come from your own inner anger and frustration. Here is my narrative. We produce a lot of food within our world. There IS enough FOOD to go around. Hunger is with us due to failure of political processes…political failure. Hunger is a moral blot on humanity. Hunger is an immediate challenge to society in that the hungry may only get one meal a day. This impacts their future development and handicaps them. We must deal with problem of hunger where it is…there are always underlying circumstances…just about any one of us, whatever our status, can contribute, making sure people get good food when they need it.

WHES: Do you see a future for local food fortification (to address vitamin mineral gaps) on a large population scale?

David: YES!! I would encourage effective local food fortification – it is important to properly manage it well at local level. It should not be used as an excuse to avoid the purchase and use of locally produced foods in creating healthy and nutritious diets.

WHES: Do you have any views about how we (e.g. everyone) can/should ever get to funding for the massive scaleup of Community Managed Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) approaches to address hidden hunger?

David: We have to make sure that this is inside the purview of good development initiatives. It is an immensely empowering for communities. Every child should have access to therapeutic nutrition if needed.

WHES Loses a Key Board Member

LINDA CRANDALL WORTHINGTON

1932-2019

 

Linda Crandall Worthington, 87, of Chevy Chase, MD, passed away on Sunday, October 20, 2019.

Over her lifetime, Linda was involved with a number of organization that serve the poor and hungry, including the World Hunger Education Service. Information about Linda has been drawn from her own Bio on our website.

Linda’s relationship with the World Hunger Education Service started at the beginning of WHES. In the 1970s, she worked with the founder of WHES, Pat Kutzner, on hunger seminars and publications, including editing several of the earliest print issues of Hunger Notes. She became a member of the Board of Directors in the mid-1990s and served as a Board member until 2017, and Emeritus thereafter. She was Board Secretary for most of that time. She edited and contributed articles for Hunger Notes. Her experience in a variety of situations where hunger was important, her experience in editing and publishing, her warmth and collegiality, and her ability to see a way forward for a small organization, played a major role in WHES’ existence and development over the years.

Most of the positions Linda held over the years have dealt with hunger and poverty in one form or fashion. These included:

In the 1990’s:

  • As senior editor for the now defunct DIVERSITY magazine, a publication on biodiversity that dealt a lot with agricultural research.
  • Co-director of the International Voluntary Services, an overseas development organization that placed volunteers in other countries.
  • Administrator for a small advocacy group called the Campaign to Oppose the Return of the Khmer Rouge (CORKR).

During the 1970s, Linda worked for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. One of her most notable efforts was organizing and holding a seminar on Capitol Hill to look at food and hunger issues, based on the book, Food First, by Frances Moore Lappe. The conference included several congressmen as well as other prominent speakers on various aspects of the issue.

For 14 years, Linda lived overseas as a foreign service wife, in Vietnam from 1962-1965, then in Thailand for eight years. She later found out Dan Shaughnessy, a former WHES Board Chair, was also in Vietnam at that same time. She was also Dakar, Senegal, with her husband and remained there until his death in 1981.

For the past twenty years, Linda had been a writer/editor for the United Methodist Church’s Baltimore-Washington regional office and wrote stories and articles for the bimonthly newspaper, the UMConnection, for the Web site, and was editor and writer of the weekly e-connection.

Linda was employed occasionally as an editor and did several projects one place or another.

  • In Senegal she worked as the administrative assistant and coordinator for a large multi-country nutrition project that brought together officials from several francophone countries to talk about “nutrition planning.”
  • She researched and wrote on the effects of the sale of Nestle products on poor people. Her work took her into the worst slums of Bangkok to interview women.

Linda had received her B.S. in Social Work and English from Kalamazoo College, and her M.A. in Theology from Wesley Theological Seminary. Linda started more graduate work at Michigan State in Anthropology and Sociology but went overseas before writing the dissertation.

She is the mother of four grown children. Linda was an active member of a United Methodist Church, held membership in the United Methodist Association of Communicators and the Religious Communicators Association and was vice president of the International Voluntary Services Alumni Association. In  2019 she was awarded the Harry Denman Award for Evangelism.

Linda traveled to more than 35 countries in five continents, many of which were work missions. Some of Linda’s leisure time was spent as a member of a league of duckpin bowlers.

Linda’s contributions to World Hunger Education Service were innumerable and will she will be dearly missed by those who worked with her at World Hunger Education Service, as well as many other who are working to address hunger and poverty.

A link to Linda’s obituary may be found here.

Malnutrition in Humanitarian Crises: The Will to End a Preventable Disease

October 10, 2019

Disasters of any kind can disrupt food sources for proper nutrition, which is vital for growth, development, and good health. Malnutrition is a common but overlooked consequence of the humanitarian crises that so often result from natural and human-made disasters.

More than 821 million people suffered from hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition globally in 2018.1 Malnutrition is characterized by deficiencies in specific nutrients, general undernutrition, or general overnutrition.2 In cases of disasters, we focus on undernutrition and nutrient deficits. Immediate causes of malnutrition seem obvious—inadequate dietary intake of nutrients and diseases that prevent the body from absorbing necessary nutrients.

Across the globe, terrorism, war, and other armed conflicts are a main cause of hunger and resulting malnutrition.

To prevent malnutrition, the underlying causes should be front and center—food insecurity, inadequate care for women and children, insufficient health services, and unhealthy environments.3

Across the globe, terrorism, war, and other armed conflicts are a main cause of hunger and resulting malnutrition.4 The most challenging areas with high rates of malnutrition and food insecurity and limited data are those areas that cannot be reached by humanitarian organizations due to conflict or natural disasters.5 For example, effects of the ongoing war in Yemen put around 7.4 million people in need of services to treat or prevent malnutrition by the end of 2018.6 Zimbabwe, affected by drought and Cyclone Idai, has high rates of food insecurity because of affected harvests.4

Maintaining nutrition during disaster is often more about political will than about resource scarcity. Public health professionals and the scientific community in general can partner with governments to develop policies that maximize limited resources.

Disasters often exacerbate already existing crises, such as economic crises that cause unemployment and the price of food to rise.

Cindy Holleman, a senior economist at the Food and Agriculture Organization, says that disasters often exacerbate already existing crises, such as the economic crises that already plague many middle-income countries, where rising unemployment and high food prices mean much of the population is food insecure.7 Holleman argues that governments can address hunger concerns with better economic policies.

To improve the malnutrition crisis in Bangladesh, for example, agricultural policies by the government led to a focus on improving fishery and aquaculture, which subsequently mitigated poverty and improved nutrition outcomes. To tackle micronutrient deficiencies, India has used biofortification—breeding crops to increase nutritional content—which has proven effective in reducing anemia and other nutrition-related conditions.8

When disaster strikes a region already experiencing high malnutrition, UN guidelines have been in place for many years. With 1 in 13 children around the world living in a war zone, one nongovernmental organization has found an updated aproach to address today’s exigencies.9 Focus points include alleviating the severe-acute/moderate-acute malnutrition cycle with a unified treatment program, bringing treatment to children instead of waiting for them to come to health care facilities, and increasing both funding and the political will to save lives.

Malnutrition is a common consequence of humanitarian crises. And humanitarian organizations alone cannot eliminate the disease. Every country’s government should create policies that prevent malnutrition and decrease its burden in case of disaster. It is time for policy makers to work with public health professionals and other partners in their region to develop new and innovative approaches to treat this preventable disease.

References

  1. Agence France-Presse, “821 Million People Suffered From Hunger, Malnutrition In 2018: UN,” NDTV (July 2019).
  2. World Health Organization, “Malnutrition: Key Facts,” Health Topics (February 2018).
  3. United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef’s Approach to Scaling up Nutrition: For Mothers and Their Children, Discussion Paper, Programme Division (June 2015).
  4. Schauenberg, Tim, “World Hunger Continues to Rise Due to Conflict, Climate Change, Says UN Report,” MSN News (July 2019).
  5. IPC Global Partners, Evidence and Standards for Better Food Security and Nutrition Decisions, Rome, Technical Series FAO/FSNAU (April 2019).
  6. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), Yemen: 2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview, Strategic Response Plan (February 2019).
  7. Lieberman, Amy, “Why Is Global Hunger on the Rise? UN Economists Explain a New Answer,” Devex (July 2019).
  8. Yadava, Devendra Kumar, “Nutritional Security through Crop Biofortification in India: Status and Future Prospects,” Indian Journal of Medical Research 148/5 (November 2018): 621-631.
  9. International Rescue Committee, “A Groundbreaking Approach to Treating Acute Malnutrition,” (April 2019).

About the Author: Muriel Bassil is a master’s student in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health focusing on maternal and child nutrition and working on a Global Health Certificate. She’s an executive board member in both MENA Public Health (MENAPH) and Students Engaged in Public Health (SEGH). Bassil is passionate about refugee and immigrant health and plans to pursue doctoral work studying the effect of humanitarian crises on health, especially among women and children refugees coming from the Middle East.

**Original piece may be found here**

 

A Shadowy Industry Group Shapes Food Policy Around the World

When the Indian government bowed to powerful food companies last year and postponed its decision to put red warning labels on unhealthy packaged food, officials also sought to placate critics of the delay by creating an expert panel to review the proposed labeling system, which would have gone far beyond what other countries have done in the battle to combat soaring obesity rates.