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Equate and Conflate: Political Commitment to Hunger and Undernutrition Reduction in Five High-Burden Countries

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  • te Lintelo, Dolf J.H.
  • Lakshman, Rajith W.D.

Abstract

As political commitment is an essential ingredient for elevating food and nutrition security onto policy agendas, commitment metrics have proliferated. Many conflate government commitment to fight hunger with combating undernutrition. We test the hypothesis that commitment to hunger reduction is empirically different from commitment to reducing undernutrition through expert surveys in five high-burden countries: Bangladesh, Malawi, Nepal, Tanzania, and Zambia. Our findings confirm the hypothesis. We conclude that sensitive commitment metrics are needed to guide government and donor policies and programmatic action. Without, historically inadequate prioritization of non-food aspects of malnutrition may persist to imperil achieving global nutrition targets.

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  • te Lintelo, Dolf J.H. & Lakshman, Rajith W.D., 2015. "Equate and Conflate: Political Commitment to Hunger and Undernutrition Reduction in Five High-Burden Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 280-292.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:76:y:2015:i:c:p:280-292
    DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.07.013
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    6. Gupte, Jaideep & Longhurst, Richard, 2019. "How do the state’s organisational capacities at the micro- and macro-levels influence agriculture-nutrition linkages in fragile contexts?," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 74-83.
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    9. Anderson, J. & Birner, R. & Naseem, A. & Pray, C., 2018. "Promoting the Agricultural Transformation in Africa: How to Create Sufficient Political Will?," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 275988, International Association of Agricultural Economists.

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