Making progress on nutrition

A new report was launched last week in the Houses of Parliament which lays out progress made in tackling nutrition in several counties, as well as the challenges still ahead. “What works for nutrition? Stories of success from Vietnam, Uganda and Kenya”, a joint publication from RESULTS UK, Concern Worldwide and the University of Westminster, discusses these countries success in the context of global nutrition targets and concludes with key recommendations for government and civil society to build on this success and learn from their experiences.

Despite considerable progress in reducing hunger and the physical signs of malnutrition (the number of hungry people has been reduced by 200 million since 1990 and stunting in children under age five by 40%), malnutrition still places a heavy burden on survival and overall development. Some two billion people, for example, are estimated to suffer from micronutrient deficiencies (about 27% of the global population), which can have wide ranging long-term and irreversible consequences for their health and livelihoods. Undernutrition can reduce GDP and an individual’s earnings by as much as 10%. Progress in tackling malnutrition has also been uneven and inequitable: children in rural areas, for example, as twice as likely to be stunted as those in urban areas. But global initiatives are improving awareness of global malnutrition, and in 2012, the World Health Association (WHA) endorsed six targets on nutrition to be achieved by 2025.

1. Achieve a 40% reduction in the number of children under-5 who are stunted;
2. Achieve a 50% reduction of anaemia in women of reproductive age;
3. Achieve a 30% reduction in low birth weight;
4. Ensure that there is no increase in childhood overweight;
5. Increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months up to at least 50%;
6. Reduce and maintain childhood wasting to less than 5%.

Financing for nutrition has been growing recently, although evidence indicates donors need to quadruple their financial pledges and governments need to at least double the amount allocated to nutrition in order to meet the WHA target on stunting in 37 high burden countries. And nutrition is a good investment: every dollar invested in nutrition yields more than 16 in return.

Harnessing Innovation for African Agriculture and Food Systems

In November 2013, the African Union Commission (AUC) and Kofi Annan Foundation, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, convened a group of senior African leaders and experts in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss actions that could be taken to “sustain the momentum of the many positive transformations taking place in African agriculture and food systems”. A Chairs’ Summary of the high-level dialogue, “Harnessing Innovation for African Agriculture and Food Systems:  Meeting the Challenges and Designing for the 21st Century,” was recently released. The report details the discussions of the meeting, looking at some of the past successes, future challenges and opportunities for action.

The meeting, held in support of the 2014 Year of Agriculture and Food Security in Africa and the 10^th anniversary of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), noted the recent change in language used to describe African agriculture, turning to one of potential and transformation. Agriculture and farming businesses can not only play a significant role in the food security of Africans and others in the world but can be a drivers of development, poverty reduction, growth in infrastructure and address social issues such as gender inequality and youth unemployment.

Significant forces of change were identified as smallholder farmers and the private sector, while greater coordination within and beyond the continent, and between sectors, and “scaling, amplifying and transferring” of successes in a way that reflects regional differences were seen to be key to the transformation of the sector.

Some of the challenges Africa faces were, in this meeting, seen also as opportunities. For example, rapid urbanisation and shifting diets mean increased demand for food, and some 60% of the continent’s food needs arise from people in urban centres, but this is also an opportunity to build better urban to rural links and food supply chains, benefiting those in towns and cities but bringing much needed investment capital to rural areas.

Several countries are already seeing significant growth in the agricultural sector, driving reductions in hunger. While engagement of the private sector is seen as a key part of this growth, visionary and determined leadership is driving this process, and good governance and a strong enabling environment developed through the public sector were identified as being needed to “resolve bottlenecks, maintain momentum and optimise for the greatest benefit to all layers in the economy and society”. Governments’ actions to aid the development and transformation of the agricultural sector include incentivising investment, providing regulation, coordinating across sectors and providing safety nets for the most vulnerable.

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Disturbing Report Highlights the State of the World’s Oceans, Green Africa Directory

Africa Week Recognizes Development, Governance Progress, IISD

Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa, IMF

From Plates that Grow Food to Certified Cocoa: UN Awards Innovative Green Enterprises at Green Economy Symposium, SEED Initiative

UN highlights role of farming in closing emissions gap, BBC

Farmers dig into soil quality, Nature

An exclusive interview with Bill Gates, The Financial Times

FAO expects more balanced food markets, less price volatility, FAO

Climate Change Seen Posing Risk to Food Supplies, The New York Times

New Effort Launched to Measure and Monitor Global Food Loss and Waste, UNEP

Nitrogen fixation helps double some African farm yields, SciDev.Net

Crop pests spreading polewards under global warming, European Commission

Food waste: ‘Six meals a week’ thrown away by Britons, BBC

We’ll rise or fall on the quality of our soil, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

How complexity thinking cut malnutrition in Vietnam by two thirds, From Poverty to Power, Duncan Green

What we’ve been reading this week

This week’s summary on the news stories, reports and blogs that have grabbed our attention. We welcome your thoughts and comments on these articles.

Africa leading the way, Impatient Optimists

Is it crazy to think we can eradicate poverty?, The New York Times

Guest post: to find African development, look for good governance by the sea, Financial Times

Bill Gates Joins Tony Blair in Praising Africa Economic Progress, Bloomberg

Open Data Opens Doors, Feed the Future

Food Biotechnology: A Communicator’s Guide to Improving Understanding, Food Insight

Encouraging signs of progress from Bonn climate talks, Thomson Reuters Foundation

GM crops: Promise and reality, Nature

Over half world’s population could depend on imported food by 2050, Environmental Research Web

Agriculture and Livestock Remain Major Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Worldwatch Institute

Agricultural intensification could run up high bills in the long-run, SciDev.Net

New GM crop wave may ease Frankenfood fright, Western Farm Press

The Expanding Role of Smallholder Farmers in Feeding the World, CSIS

Africa: Economists Warn of Gaps Amidst Africa’s Growth, All Africa

Natural resources – boon or curse?

Additional (updated) content from One Billion Hungry: Can we feed the world?

In recent years, it has become fashionable to argue that the less developed countries of Sub-Saharan Africa should emulate Brazil and the eastern tigers with rapid industrialization, in many cases on the back of the exploitation of rich mineral, oil and other resources. Around one third of the growth in GDP in Africa between 2000 and 2008 (4.9%) has come from these resources and the associated government spending they generated. The rest has come from internal structural changes (e.g. Nigeria privatized more than 116 enterprises between 1999 and 2006) and from other sectors. Africa is projected to continue to profit from the rising global demand for natural resources given that it comprises 10% of the world’s oil reserves, 40% of its gold and 80 to 90% of the chromium and platinum metal group. But so far, the experience has not been accompanied by much trickle down and indeed has reversed progress towards reduction in poverty and social freedoms. Moreover, countries both with and without significant resource exports have had similar GDP growth rates between 2000 and 2008.

Although in  the short term the export of natural resources such as oil and minerals can give an economy a boost, generating higher incomes, allow greater consumption of both imported and domestically produced goods, and provide governments with greater resources for investment in development, the long-term impacts may offset, if not exceed, these positives. In 1977 the Economist published an article entitled The Dutch Disease that described the situation whereby a country’s export performance is reduced as a result of an appreciation of the exchange rate after a natural resource such as oil has been discovered.

The transition of an economy to the production of natural resources, despite mixed evidence of the nature (i.e. positive or negative) of its impact on economic growth, has been deemed the ‘resource curse’.

The transfer of capital and labour to the natural resource sector can lead to declines in productivity in other sectors, such as agriculture, that will be important sources of growth when the natural resource is depleted. Further impacts can include volatility in public spending associated with volatile prices and thus revenue from natural resources, as well as over borrowing, when commodity prices are high, leading to high debt levels, when commodity prices fall.

Enough food for everyone IF….

Originally posted on the Agriculture for Impact blog.

One in eight women, men and children go to bed hungry every night and by 2025 nearly a billion young people will face poverty because of the damage done to them now through hunger and malnutrition. These are just some of the startling statistics that have led over 100 organisations to combine under a new campaign.

“Enough food for everyone if…” is the slogan of this UK campaign launched on the 23^rd January 2013. Backed by Desmond Tutu and Bill Gates, the campaign aims to reach 20 million people in the UK and get 5 million people involved with the ultimate goal of petitioning David Cameron to lead on hunger at the G8, which the UK have presidency over for 2013. With his leadership, the campaign hopes to ensure global leaders, meeting at the G8 summit in June, act on the underlying causes of hunger.

Namely that there can be ENOUGH FOOD FOR EVERYONE:

• IF we give enough aid to stop children dying from hunger and help the poorest families feed themselves
• IF governments stop big companies dodging tax in poor countries, so that millions of people can free themselves from hunger
• IF we stop poor farmers being forced off their land and we grow crops to feed people not fuel cars
• IF governments and big companies are honest and open about their actions that stop people getting enough food