The world has a nutrition problem. Though great strides have been made toward the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of undernourished people in developing countries, the problem remains persistent, pervasive and complex. After all, the issue goes beyond merely providing more food; effective efforts to reduce undernourishment must ensure that people have access to enough of the right types of food — those that give them the nutrients they need to live healthy, productive lives.
Since 1945, food production has tripled, and food availability has risen by 40 percent, on average, per person. Over the past decade alone, vegetable production in the Asia-Pacific region, where more than three quarters of the world’s vegetables are grown, increased by one quarter.
However, despite these gains in expanding the food supply, at least 805 million people still go hungry every day, of whom about 791 million live in developing countries. Many more go hungry seasonally or intermittently. And more than 2 billion people suffer from “hidden hunger” — one or more micronutrient deficiencies.
Illustration: Mountain People
Hunger and undernourishment damage the health and productivity of adults, undermining their ability to learn and work. Moreover, they impede children’s physical and cognitive development, and leave them more susceptible to illness and premature death. Stunted growth due to malnutrition affects one in four children under the age of five.
Adequate nutrition is most vital during the first 1,000 days of life (from conception to a child’s second birthday). However, even after that, hunger and undernourishment continue to diminish children’s chances of surviving to adulthood, much less reaching their full potential.
Ironically, in many parts of the world, pervasive hunger coexists with rising levels of obesity. More than 1.5 billion people are overweight, with one third of them considered obese. These people are particularly vulnerable to non-communicable diseases like heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
Contrary to popular belief, obesity is often related less to an overabundance of food than to inadequate access to affordable, diverse and balanced diets. The challenge facing the international community is thus to ensure adequate consumption of the right kinds of food.
This means developing food systems that are more responsive to people’s needs, particularly those of the socially excluded and economically marginalized. Mothers, young children, the elderly and the disabled are among the most vulnerable to the pitfalls of undernourishment, and should be given special attention in efforts to end food insecurity and undernourishment.
In order to ensure that today’s efforts benefit future generations, strategies to improve global food systems must emphasize environmental sustainability. Specifically, world leaders must reassess prevailing food-production processes, which often put considerable stress on natural resources by exhausting freshwater supplies, encroaching on forests, degrading soils, depleting wild fish stocks and reducing biodiversity. Making matters worse, the lack of adequate infrastructure for storing and transporting food to consumers contributes to massive losses.
Of course, it is essential to strike the right balance between producing enough nutrient-dense food and preserving the environment. Consider livestock production, which accounts for many foods — including milk, eggs and meat — that have enriched diets in developing countries and provide livelihoods for millions.
Unsustainable production systems, combined with wasteful and excessive consumption in some regions of the world, have had serious consequences in terms of climate change, disease transmission and nutritional balance.
However, with a strong political commitment, global food-production systems can be transformed. An obvious step would be to ensure that all food-related programs, policies and interventions account for nutrition and sustainability.
Likewise, food-related research and development should focus on facilitating the production of nutrient-rich foods and the diversification of farming systems. Finding ways to use water, land, fertilizer and labor more efficiently, and with minimal adverse impact, is essential to ecological sustainability.
Equally important will be interventions that empower local communities to improve their diets. This requires comprehensive public health and education campaigns, social protection to enhance resilience, and initiatives to boost employment and income generation.
Finally, producers and distributors need support and encouragement to transform their existing systems. After all, a shift toward sustainability cannot come at the expense of farmers’ livelihoods.
Better nutrition makes economic sense. Malnutrition in all of its forms reduces global economic welfare by about 5 percent annually, through foregone output and additional costs incurred. The economic gains of reducing micronutrient deficiencies are estimated to have a cost/benefit ratio of almost 1:13.
The upcoming Second International Conference on Nutrition in Rome [Nov. 19 to Nov. 21] provides a historic opportunity to galvanize political commitment to enhance nutrition for all through better policies and international solidarity. Failure to make the needed investments in food access, nutrition, and sustainability is morally — and economically — unjustifiable.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram is assistant director-general and coordinator for economic and social development at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations