Institute Notes: A Dialogue on Overcoming Hunger and Poverty

Giving a (Loud) Voice to Nutrition

I somehow missed Nick Kristof's excellent piece last week on the toll malnutrition takes on infants and young children. From severe acute malnutrition (à la the typical image of starving babies) to the "hidden hunger" of micronutrient deficiencies that affect 2 billion or more people around the world, Kristof's piece draws important attention to this issue.

One of the concerns raised in the piece is about the long-term consequences of child malnutrition in terms of both physical and cognitive development. The evidence of the impact of malnutrition on early child development is consistent and overwhelming. Connected to the individual health outcomes associated with malnutrition (including 3.5 million deaths of children under-five years of age) are the long-term economic consequences. These have been documented in a number of places, paper 2 of a 5 paper series published in 2008 in The Lancet as but one example of many. As the authors of The Lancet paper note,

Poverty is both a cause and an outcome of poor human development, and investments in child nutrition are being promoted as a strategy for economic development. Better child nutrition improves cognition and schooling, as discussed. It can also affect adult earnings through reduced lean body mass (including shorter height) and decreased productivity in jobs requiring manual labour. In the Guatemala trial, the nutrition intervention led to increased body size and improved work capacity.

These indicators of physical and intellectual human capital, in turn, have been associated with increased earnings. Adult height is positively associated with income, even in urban settings and even after adjustment for education... Exposure to improved nutrition before, but not after, 3 years of age was associated with higher hourly wages in Guatemalan men. For exposure from 0 to 2 years, the increase was US$0·67 per h (95% CI 0·16—1·17), which equates to a 46% increase in average wages. (internal citations omitted, emphasis added)

An Objective Look at GMOs in Developing Countries?

The use of crops that are modified by the transfer of genes across species (GMOs, or “transgenics”) has provoked concerns that reverberate in the media and the academic press and have reached into the fields and lives of farmers in both rich and poor countries. The language in the Lugar-Casey “Global Food Security” draft legislation, which explicitly extends the research authorized under the Foreign Assistance Act to include work on GMOs, has touched off another round of debate. An issue that remains generally unaddressed amidst all the polemic is that what consumers and producers in rich countries may prefer is not necessarily what producers and consumers in poor countries may need (and want); there is a risk that the preferences of rich countries—transformed into science and development policies—may hinder the poor’s access to needed technologies.

While the charges and counter-charges have been flying, there has been a paucity of objective analysis of the subject, with advocates for one side or the other seizing upon individual case studies in support of their arguments. Now, IFPRI – the International Food Policy Research Institute -- has stepped into the fray with the first attempt at an objective look at the pros and cons of whether GMOs do, in fact, benefit farmers in developing countries. The  IFPRI study – Measuring the Economic Impacts of Transgenic Crops in Developing Agriculture during the First Decade – limits itself exclusively to peer-reviewed studies of the impacts of transgenic crops in nonindustrialized agriculture. The questions addressed focused on the advantages (if any) of transgenic crops to farmers, the importance of GMOs (or lack thereof) to consumers, the magnitude and distribution of economic benefits of transgenic crops across an industry, and the international distribution of economic benefits from adoption and trade of transgenic crops.

On balance, the authors conclude that the balance sheet is promising for the few biotech crops (Bt cotton and maize, herbicide resistant soybeans) that have been introduced thus far in developing economies. However, they caution that the number of studies reviewed is small (only 137 met the criteria), and that the overall findings mask fairly wide variations in the individual studies. It’s noteworthy that the most promising experiences with GMOs were in those emerging economies with vibrant research institutions and strong markets. I.e., institutional capacity is an important determinant of whether GMOs do, in fact, begin to manifest the benefits that are claimed for them. This, in turn, points up the importance of long-term institutional development and helping to assure that developing countries have the capacity to make informed decisions about whether and how to employ these new and controversial technologies.

It’s normal for academic studies to conclude with a call for further research, thus guaranteeing further work for researchers. In this case, though, the admonition is appropriate. If ever a subject warranted dispassionate, objective analysis, this is one.

A momentous week for vitamins indeed!

This week marked big news in the fight against micronutrient deficiencies. Experts and practitioners from around the world gathered in Beijing under the auspices of the Micronutrient Forum being held in Beijing, China. The event was used as the platform for the release of a new report, Investing in the Future: A United Call to Action on Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies. Congratulations are in order for the groups - Micronutrient Initiative, GAIN, UNICEF, The World Bank, USAID, the Flour Fortification Initiative - which sponsored and wrote the report.

As the report makes clear, around the world hundreds of millions of young children do not get the vitamins and minerals, vitamin A, iron, zinc, iodine and folic acid, especially. Without these key nutrients children will suffer a lifetime of debilitating cognitive and physical disabilities. For women too, lack of proper nutrition including iron can wreak havoc. Each year 135,000 women who suffer from iron deficient enemia die from complications during child birth.

Beyond making a strong case for why micronutrients are critical for child growth and development and maternal health, the report includes examples of succsesful programs and partnerships that are helping to improve access to these nutrients. Finally, the report also includes country level estimates showing the size of vitamin deficiencies. This is a much needed addition to the information and literature available on the size and scope of malnutrition.

As if one major report highlighting micronutrient deficiencies were not enough, Nicholas Kristof took up the problem of vitamin A deficiency (and the accompanying problem of night blindness) in an Op-Ed published on Thursday

The President Gives Birth to a bouncing $3.4 T Budget

It was a busy day here in Washington as details on the budget were announced. The newspapers have tended to focus on the topline numbers - a $3.4 trillion dollar budget with cuts of about 17 billion in programs deemed inefficient or ineffective.

The attention at Bread for the World has been on the budget accounts that matter for hungry and poor people. My colleague Sophie Milam pointed out that the budget includes $5 million to implement the Hunger Free Communities Act, a piece of legislation Bread worked hard to ensure was included in the last Farm Bill. The HFCA will provide small grants to local groups seeking innovative solutions to hunger in their own communities. After all of the hard work put in by Bread members and staff to get the program authorized, it was a delight to see the program get funding.

For my part, I spent some time combing through the international affairs portion of the budget.

What do we mean by "poverty alleviation?"

Almost everyone agrees that poverty alleviation should be the paramount goal of development assistance. But what do we mean by poverty alleviation? Is it helping the very poorest of the poor achieve a better quality of life? Or is it enabling the largest number of people to get above the poverty line? Does it mean helping to improve people’s lives now, or laying the conditions for future improvements?

Owen Barder, of the Center for Global Development, has performed a useful service in a recent paper, What is Poverty Reduction? In it, he points out the implicit trade-offs between tackling current and future poverty, between helping as many poor people as possible versus focusing on those in chronic poverty, and between measures that tackle the causes of poverty and those which deal with the symptoms. In fact, notes the author, “poverty reduction actually encompasses many goals, some of which are contradictory.” If donor agencies do not explicitly recognize and account for these differences at the outset – unless it’s clear what measure for poverty reduction is going to be employed – confusion and disillusionment can and does ensue.