Contents - Previous - Next

This is the old United Nations University website. Visit the new site at http://unu.edu

Food and nutrition policy

Political and analytical barriers to solving food problems
Proposal for a data base on food and nutrition

Political and analytical barriers to solving food problems

Wouter Tims
Amsterdam, Netherlands

The article "National Agricultural Policies and World Hunger" by M. Urrutia [Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 6 (1 ): 1 ] raises some important points concerning the inability of some parts of the developing world to come to grips with their food problems. The points he raises are worth further elaboration and support. In attempting to do so, I will draw on the work being done by the Centre for World Food Studies in the Netherlands in close collaboration with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. This work involves a major effort at modeling the relevant variables concerning food.

There is, no doubt, a lack of political will to tackle the issues adequately in many countries where people suffer from inadequate nutrition, and this lack of will is not limited to hesitations to undertake land reforms. By now there is fairly general agreement that a lack of food is closely linked to a lack of purchasing power to obtain food. The food problem, therefore, is a facet of the poverty problem, and it is unlikely that the food problem can be really solved without major inroads being made towards the eradication of poverty. Land reform may be helpful to this end, at least in some countries, but it is doubtful whether it is a sufficient means in countries where land is scarce and land reform benefits would only be marginal for the poor.

Still, the point made with regard to a perceived lack of political will regarding land reform is a valid one: it extends, however, to a much broader array of policies. In fact, as numerous authors have shown convincingly,* there is a significant preference for policies that benefit the formal urban sectors over informal urban groups, and more broadly for policies that benefit urban rather than rural populations. To benefit all of the poor, poverty eradication would need to pervade all government policies, irrespective of whether they concern prices, taxes, education, health, credit, transport, or investment allocations. These policies tend to have, however, the opposite effect in practice, worsening the relative position of the poor and sometimes even their absolute poverty. The rising tide of migration to the cities is a clear result of policies that fail to deal effectively with rural poverty.

In a number of instances governments that do face an aggravating food and poverty problem can defend themselves by saying that their policies could not be tested in advance in terms of their effects on the lower income groups. In most cases this is true: the analytical tools for dealing with the effects of economic policies on income distribution are weak or even non-existent. Progress is being made, but it is a slow process that requires a thorough rethinking of economic causalities and the development of new analytical techniques. Both are, by their nature, gradual processes with lots of trial-and-error stages where one needs to go back to the drawing board.

Many governments in developing countries are genuinely interested in policy analysis that, in due course, will enable them to address poverty issues as part of their general policy approach and as one target for their scarce resources. At present, the lack of an analytical basis for poverty-oriented policies and, therefore, the uncertainty about the effects of these policies on the poor are by themselves reasons to do the more certain thing of spending resources in urban areas. What is seen as a lack of political will may, therefore, to some extent be a lack of better insights into what can be done - or what not to do - to alleviate hunger and poverty. The perception that the costs may be excessive and the benefits too small cannot easily be dismissed or countered by sound analysis.

The type of study that needs to be undertaken for these purposes is complex, cumbersome, and time-consuming. In the climate in which most policies are made there is little or no patience with these approaches as decisions are continuously made under the pressure of prevailing circumstances. Analysis is welcome if it can be used right now, rather than in two or three years' time. Even the effort to put together a coherent set of data that show the sources of income and spending patterns for each relevant socio-economic group is already a major exercise. Such studies must draw on a multitude of statistical sources, surveys, and specialized studies to even approach an accurate portrayal. The models developed from data of that kind, which should preferably be based on general equilibrium approaches as Urrutia suggests, require another major effort.

It is clear that exercises of this kind cannot be looked at as useful for only one specified time period and then discarded - for example, a five-year plan, a temporary food strategy, or the equivalent. The models and their data base need to be seen as a real investment, to be maintained and improved over time, and to serve a broad range of purposes, all of which support the process of policy-making with continuous, sound analysis. This view represents a new stage in the evolution of analytical support to policies and deserves to be recognized as such, as it promises to benefit the quality of the policy-making process considerably.

The collaboration of the IIASA and the Centre for World Food Studies tries to help in establishing suitable analytical tools at the country level. With a general equilibrium approach to country modelling, supported by an evolving set of mathematical and programming tools, the two institutions have jointly been able to inspire a sizeable number of national research institutes to engage in this venture. The experience in a number of countries has been positive, and has initiated a learning process that has improved the quality and relevance of the analytical tools.

Making investments in refined analytical tools is a costly and time-consuming process that asks more patience than policy-makers can afford. As a consequence, efforts to co-operate at the country level are not in all cases successful: sometimes interest fades away when it is understood how much effort is required, and sometimes projects are abandoned halfway because funds have been depleted. Still, since the start of the operation, models for 23 countries have been completed and are to various degrees being used. Some are not as yet sufficiently developed to be applied fully, but several have reached this stage.

Another interesting property of current models is that the individual country models are designed for international linkage. As several models for the industrial countries, particularly European countries, the United States, and Canada, are now available, it is possible to apply the system that Urrutia suggests elsewhere in his article, i.e., the tracing of the effects that food policies (or, more generally, agricultural policies) of the industrial countries have on world markets and prices. This topic is important as there is much controversy on the point. The use of the system of models will be able to shed more light on the alleged negative impact of agricultural protection in the industrial countries on trade and growth in the developing countries and will add considerably to the insights into these issues that have been raised for many years by a number of international organizations and by the FAO in particular.

Efforts like these take a very long time to mature. It has taken almost ten years of considerable world-wide effort to get to the point where results at the country and international levels are being brought into the open. Scenarios based on the international, linked system will for the first time be presented at a series of conferences to be organized by the IIASA in the course of 1985. It is hoped that this conference will stimulate enough new enthusiasm that countries not yet associated with the network will join in and strengthen the system further, making it a tool for improving quality and value over time. Many similar ventures of this kind have fallen by the wayside before they matured; this one, which is focused on an issue of global concern, has been able to mature, although there were times during its development when the total effort was brought close to the point of faltering. What is needed now is a close scrutiny of the value of what has been achieved by all concerned with the issue of food policies. Assuming the efforts will be found to have been worthwhile, a joint effort will be needed to keep alive what has been put together and to improve upon its quality. In that context those who have been associated with the programme for all these years would like to look to the United Nations University for support in mobilizing research, particularly in developing countries, to extend the system and to improve food policies through better analytical support.

Proposal for a data base on food and nutrition

PAHO/WHO Consultation Group on Nutritional Surveillance

A group of professionals from various disciplines in the basic and nutrition sciences served as a consultation, group for determining the responsibilities of the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization in regard to food and nutrition surveillance. The meeting was organized by the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP) and held in Guatemala City on 5-6 April 1984.

While developed for the Western Hemisphere, the list of data in the following table, reprinted from the report of the meeting, represents the technical information that is desirable for the analyses required in any region. Such data are reasonably accessible in interested countries and from other sources of information such as the United Nations and its agencies.

This data base can be used to interpret the food and nutrition situation and its trends in relation to geographic, demographic, and socio-economic conditions in any country. It can contribute to the monitoring and evaluation of the Health-for-AII strategies and plans of action to improve the food and nutrition status of the countries of a region.

The data base can also provide current data on tendencies and changes in the social, economic, and health conditions that affect food and nutrition in countries and can serve as a basis for planning, executing, and evaluating regional and national policies and programmes in this field.

It can also help to strengthen the coordination of intersectoral measures and to rationalize the efforts and resources of external co-operation in support of the food and nutrition strategies and programmes of individual countries.

These data should be complemented by other data generally available to WHO and its regional offices that bear closely on food and nutrition problems and actions in the countries, such as
(a) births and deaths,
(b) population dynamics,
(c) health-related social and economic factors,
(d) health-service systems, and
(e) nutrition interventions.

Information Required for the PAHO/WHO Regional Food and Nutrition Programme

Contents - Previous - Next