Read at : IRIN
Food aid that gets you two for the price of one
JOHANNESBURG, 18 November 2009 (IRIN) – Good quality food aid can save billions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on saving lives, says a major report from the World Bank, one of two new studies that uncover some unsettling facts about food aid and malnutrition.
Spending US$200 to treat a severely malnourished child can save $1,351 in treating nutrition-related illnesses, said the report, Scaling up Intervention: What will it cost? which argued that “The cost of not intervening … is much higher. The benefits from iron fortification of staples and salt iodization alone are estimated at $7.2 billion per year.”
The 2007/2008 food price crisis, followed by one of the worst economic recessions in recent times, has revived the humanitarian aid world’s interest in malnutrition, especially in the quality of food aid being dispensed.
The other report, Malnutrition: how much is being spent? by international medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), agreed with the World Bank’s conclusion in that food aid abysmally fails to meet nutrition requirements.
Food aid does not necessarily focus on the “window of opportunity” from pregnancy until a child turns two, when children and women are most vulnerable, said Meera Shekar, a leading health and nutrition specialist at the World Bank and co-author of its report.
“Rarely does the food aid target the most vulnerable groups: children under five, pregnant women and lactating mothers,” said Stéphane Doyon, a co-author of the MSF report.
Donors spent very little on nutrition – barely 1.7 percent of development and emergency food aid between 2004 and 2007 actually addressed malnutrition, said MSF.
