FAO proposes multifaceted approach to combat malnutrition
23 Feb 2021 | UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization
COVID-19 has exacerbated global malnutrition, according to FAO senior economist David Dawe who explains the role of a multi-systems response. Aside from being part of corporate social responsibility, combating malnutrition is piquing consumer and government interest, and it is in the private sector’s benefit to satisfy these demands.
This is Annie Schneider reporting for Nutrition Insight.
I'm here today with David Da, senior economist at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
David has published books and conducted research in the areas of food production and natural resources, trade and markets, domestic food price policy and nutrition.
Hi, David, it's fantastic to have you with us here at Nutrition Insight today.
Hi, thank you.
We're, we're going to talk a bit about the global malnutrition crisis.
So, can you quickly share the scale of the issue and in what ways the pandemic has exacerbated this crisis?
Sure.
OK.
So even before the pandemic hit, Malnutrition was a serious problem in the region and around the world.
Nearly 350 million people in South Asia experienced severe food insecurity, which is nearly 1/5 of the population there.
On top of that, there's another 40 million in Southeast Asia.
An estimated 75 million children under the age of 5 in Asia and the Pacific are stunted, which means they're not growing.
This has implications for their future cognitive development.
Their earnings potential and ultimately the health and -being of their of their children.
And in addition to these undernutrition problems, 1 billion people in Asia and the Pacific are overweight, and this number is growing by the day.
Now one of the main reasons for these problems is the unaffordability of healthy diets due to lack of income among the poor, as as high prices for nutritious food.
FAO estimated that before the pandemic hit, there were 3 billion people worldwide who could not afford a healthy diet, 1.9 billion of which Lived in Asia and the Pacific.
The pandemic has exacerbated this crisis by causing job losses and reducing the incomes of millions of people.
Obviously this affects their purchasing power, including economic access to food.
Furthermore, it's important to note that a healthy diet is substantially more expensive than a diet that just provides calories.
As a result, when people, especially the poor, suffer a loss in income, they will shift their expenditures in favor of foods that provide primarily dietary energy and away from more nutritious foods that are more expensive.
Now, social protection has ameliorated these effects to some extent, as has private charity, but they haven't eliminated all the impacts.
The pandemic has also affected food prices by interfering with food supply chains, but this effect seems to be much smaller than the income effect, as consumer food prices have not changed all that much since the pandemic began.
In this case, it seems that government and the private sector working together have managed to keep supply chains functioning relatively and better than might have been expected.
The FAO is conducting a multi-systems response can, in terms of tackling malnutrition, what are some of the biggest obstacles to progress that the FAO has, faced in terms of conducting that multi-systems response?
I think the biggest one is just inertia.
All of us get comfortable doing things a certain way.
And to be honest, a lot of progress has been made in Asia and the Pacific over the past few decades.
Poverty's declined dramatically, as have, as has undernourishment and stunting.
So why change?
But the fact is that even these large gains have not eliminated those problems, and it's becoming harder and harder to make progress.
But different sectors sometimes just don't see the need to cooperate, and to be honest, working, working with others takes time.
Now one way to overcome these problems is through political leadership.
Another is through education so that people understand better the complex nature of malnutrition and how it's affected by so many different factors from so many different systems.
Food systems, sanitation systems, health systems, education systems, social protection systems.
And sometimes people or policymakers don't realize that interventions in one part of one system have effects on nutrition.
Now, that being said, progress is being made, I think.
In Bangladesh, the Ministry of Food is collaborating, has collaborated with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs and Health.
And the Ministry of Family Welfare in order to develop a country investment plan to improve food security and nutrition.
The Philippines complements cash transfer programs with agriculture training to set up microenterprises through public-private partnerships that help beneficiaries to invest in productive assets, engage in risk risk reduction and resilience building practices such as climate-smart agriculture.
And increase or stabilize incomes while improving nutrition, behavior, education, and health practices.
Together these have shown greater impacts than each program in isolation.
In terms of the private sector, what is the financial incentive or corporate benefit for the private sector to invest in combating global malnutrition?
I think one answer.
Is that combating global nutrition is part of corporate social responsibility.
If consumers perceive that a company is doing something beneficial for a cause that they care about, then they'll be more likely to buy that company's products and services.
But there's other arguments as in addition to the CSR argument.
To me, a more convincing argument is that demand for products that combat malnutrition is increasing on the part of both consumers and governments.
Consumers are increasing their demand because they're starting to care more about their personal nutrition as they realize that.
Bad practices can put them at greater risk of contracting non-communicable diseases.
Government demand is increasing because they realize the importance of good nutrition for the health of their citizens and ultimately the strength and competitiveness of their countries.
This government demand is realized through school meals, responding to disasters, and other such challenges.
Now the biggest profits to be made from selling any product or service is at the beginning, when there's less competition from other firms.
If you get into the game later on, producing something that's similar to what's already on the market.
Profit margins become smaller.
Being the first company to develop and deliver a product or service is risky, of course, but it carries potentially large benefits for the firms that get in on the accident at an early stage.
I'm probably missing some other arguments, but I do think the private sector can benefit financially from getting in on the movement to alleviate malnutrition.
And the truth is society really needs the innovations in the nutrition space that can come from all the creative people in the private sector.
That's very interesting.
This has been Anie Schleicher with David Dah from the FAO.
Thanks very much for sharing your insights.
Yes, thank you, Annie.
