At the World Summit of Food Security in 2009, the definition of food security was expanded to include nutrition as a critical component of the overall concept of food security. Despite increased recognition of the importance of nutrition, however, many Arab countries continue to struggle with malnutrition, particularly among children. Research has found that among children under five in the Arab world, every fifth child suffers from malnutrition; this number jumps to every third child in Egypt and Sudan, while in Yemen, a full two-thirds of children are stunted due to malnutrition in their early years.
IFPRI researchers Clemens Breisinger, Olivier Ecker, Marc Nene, and Perrihan Al-Riffai presented a paper at this week's International Conference on Food Security in Dry Lands that emphasizes the need for increased attention to nutrition in interventions in the Arab world. The paper, Positioning Nutrition as Central for a Food Secure Arab World, investigates why, despite economic growth and rising incomes throughout the region, malnutrition remains such a widespread problem, as well as how public resources can best be used to address the challenges caused by food insecurity and malnutrition.
The authors find that when it comes to the budgets of governments and international development organizations, the nutritional component of food security tends to be sadly underfunded. In order to truly fight the trend of malnutrition and under-nutrition, both in the Arab world and in the rest of the world, investments in nutritional interventions must be scaled up. Evidence of the success of such scaled-up interventions can be seen in the case of Brazil, which managed to halve the incidence of child stunting between 1996 and 2007. Brazil's success was driven by declining poverty and an increase in mothers' education, as well as expanded healthcare coverage and improved sanitation efforts. Brazil's "Zero Hunger" strategy provides a strong example of how development organizations and government agencies can work together to create strong, effective programs that make great strides in improving populations' food and nutritional security.
Learn more about IFPRI's work in the Middle East and North Africa