What can food policy do to redirect the diet transition?

"The dietary transition in the developing world is accelerating toward an increased burden of chronic disease. It is increasing human mortality and disease burdens, and it is lowering economic productivity. The dietary transition is driven by changing preferences fueled by growing incomes, changing relative prices, urbanization, and food technology and distribution systems. This paper identifies policy options from the food supply and demand sides that can influence the transition toward increasingly healthy outcomes. These options have had mixed success in industrialized countries, and the policy tradeoffs in the developing world will be even more complicated. Additional technical research is needed to assess competing risks and help develop policy options. There is also a need for research to engage different actors in the policymaking process. In a debate in which much is at stake, there is a potentially powerful role for researchers to bring these actors to the table. In the end, this may help improve the decisionmaking processes underlying food policies that aim to redirect the diet transition toward healthier outcomes. " Authors' Abstract

What can food policy do to redirect the diet transition?

"The dietary transition in the developing world is accelerating toward an increased burden of chronic disease. It is increasing human mortality and disease burdens, and it is lowering economic productivity. The dietary transition is driven by changing preferences fueled by growing incomes, changing relative prices, urbanization, and food technology and distribution systems. This paper identifies policy options from the food supply and demand sides that can influence the transition toward increasingly healthy outcomes. These options have had mixed success in industrialized countries, and the policy tradeoffs in the developing world will be even more complicated. Additional technical research is needed to assess competing risks and help develop policy options. There is also a need for research to engage different actors in the policymaking process. In a debate in which much is at stake, there is a potentially powerful role for researchers to bring these actors to the table. In the end, this may help improve the decisionmaking processes underlying food policies that aim to redirect the diet transition toward healthier outcomes. " Authors' Abstract

How serious is the neglect of intrahousehold inequality ?

In this report the authors develop a framework for assessing the consequences of ignoring intrahousehold inequality in the measurement and analysis of poverty and inequality. They apply this framework to data for the Philippines and conclude that : 1) the result of neglecting intrahousehold inequality will probably be considerable understatement of the levels of poverty and inequality. With the Philippine data, measured levels of inequality and poverty were off 30 percent as a result of ignoring intrahousehold variation, and 2) patterns of inequality revealed by household level data are somewhat different from patterns revealed by individual level data, but the differences seem not to be dramatic. To confirm these results, the exercise should be repeated with data from other countries.Safety Nets and Transfers,Rural Poverty Reduction,Services&Transfers to Poor,Governance Indicators,Inequality

Are better off households more unequal or less unequal ?

In many parts of the world, resources within a household are apparently not distributed according to need. Using a model of intrahousehold bargaining, this paper first tries to answer the question: As households become better off, does intrahousehold inequality increase or decrease? It finds that under certain conditions intrahousehold inequality first increases and then decreases. The debate on intrahousehold inequality is entwined with policy questions about the efficacy of targeting individual disadvantaged members of a household, as opposed to poor households in general. The paper found that anintrahousehold bargaining view tends to support targeting to disadvantaged members of the household, because of bargaining power effects. The bargaining framework also gives support for the concern that some observers have expressed about the impact of structural adjustment on intra-household inequality. When cash crops are predominantly under male control and food crops are primarily a female preserve, improving the relative price of cash crops can worsen intrahousehold inequality.Environmental Economics&Policies,Poverty Lines,Inequality,Safety Nets and Transfers,Services&Transfers to Poor

Is there an intra household Kuznets curve? Some evidence from the Philippines

Is there a"Kuznets curve"for intra household inequality ? Does intra household inequality first increase, peak, and then decrease as the household becomes better off? The authors found both theoretical and tentative empirical support for this hypothesis. The policy significance of this finding is that the benefits of an increase in household well-being need not fully trickle down to the most disadvantaged members of the household. This is particularly true for the poorest households. This finding should be taken into account in the design of supplementary feeding programs.Poverty Lines,Environmental Economics&Policies,Inequality,Housing&Human Habitats,Poverty Assessment

The value of intra-household survey data for age-based nutritional targeting

The object of this paper has been, first to develop a framework for upper-limit indicator targeting, and to illustrate it for age based targeting of nutrition interventions using data from the Philippines. Second, the authors provide quantitative estimates of the value of individual level information and of knowledge of the intra-household allocation of calories. For the sample, age proved to be a good indicator of undernutrition. However, this was not the case with household level calorie adequacy which rendered age less useful as a targeting instrument, at an often considerable calorie cost. Food sharing, on the other hand, truly rendered age less helpful as a targeting instrument because of within-household leakage. The authors conclude that the design of nutrition interventions can be very susceptible to the level of aggregation of available information. This is consistent with findings that while poverty or undernutrition rankings of groups defined on household level characteristics were not sensitive to the level of aggregation, the rankings of groups defined on individual characteristics were very sensitive. Perhaps the costs of collection of these intra-household data outweigh the benefits, but the experiments in this paper begin to answer questions about the costs of not collecting them.Poverty Lines,Youth and Governance,Science Education,Scientific Research&Science Parks,Health Monitoring&Evaluation

Intrahousehold inequality and the theory of targeting

The two literatures on targeting and on intrahousehold inequality have developed rapidly over the past 15 years, but largely independent of each other. The literature on targeting concerns itself with the design of tax and transfer programs for poverty alleviation in the presence of limited information on who the poor are. The literature on intrahousehold inequality arose out of a dissatisfaction with"unitary"models of the household, especially in explaining inequality in consumption and achievements of different household members, even after allowing for relevant differences among them. The authors begin to forge the link between the two literatures, so they can address issues policymakers face around the world. After a brief reprise of the key features of the two literatures, they indicate how the presence of intrahousehold inequality and allocation mechanisms could affect the standard analysis of targeting theory. They conclude with a list of policy questions for further research.Poverty Impact Evaluation,Environmental Economics&Policies,Safety Nets and Transfers,Services&Transfers to Poor,Rural Poverty Reduction

How does the human rights perspective help to shape the food and nutrition policy research agenda?

Food as a human right was first laid down 50 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The last 10 years, in particular, have witnessed an increased recognition of the importance of the human rights approach for designing policies and interventions that promote food and nutrition security, as evidenced by the highly visible role given to human rights at the 1996 World Food Summit. But, given that the design of effective policies and interventions is based on good analysis and information, what are the implications of the human rights approach for the food and nutrition policy research agenda? This is the question we address in this paper. We note several implications of the human rights perspective in terms of (1) new research areas, (2) new perspectives on old issues, and (3) implications for research methods.Food security. ,Human rights. ,Nutrition. ,

Effective food and nutrition policy responses to HIV/AIDS

The impact of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) on people's lives and on development is staggering. Millions have died and livelihoods have been devastated, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Agriculture and natural resources are important components of such livelihoods. And the nutritional status of those infected and affected plays a large part in determining their current welfare and their ability to further develop their livelihoods towards activities that help to mitigate the impacts of AIDS and prevent the spread of HIV. This paper first reviews the potential pathways through which HIV/AIDS affects assets and institutions generally and then the specific impacts on agriculture, natural resource management, food security, and nutrition. The review addresses the question of how the public sector can and should respond to these challenges. The focus is primarily on mitigation, though the authors note that effective mitigation can also serve as a very cost-effective form of prevention. As labor becomes depleted, new cultivation technologies and varieties need to be developed that do not rely so much on labor, yet allow crops to remain drought resistant and nutritious.Sustainable livelihoods. ,HIV/AIDS ,Africa, Sub-Saharan. ,Nutritional status. ,Crops and soil Management. ,HIV/AIDS ,Nutritional status. ,