Whom are we protecting? A gendered reflection on food security and child malnutrition

Abstract

Feeding almost 9 billion people in 2050 will require careful planning consideration to overcome the current structural causes of food insecurity and malnutrition that lead to inter-generational transfers of disadvantage. Malnutrition is all its forms constrain individual and national development and place a significant burden on health care systems. The rate of reduction of stunting during the MDG period is not be enough to stem the tide of increasing absolute numbers of stunted children in the post MGD era. This study applied Vector Autoregression (VAR) analysis to test the two-way causality of stunting among young girls and national food supply adequacy, controlling for two “deep” determinants, gender parity and institutions. The findings show that increase in aggregate food supply does not necessarily or immediately result in reduction in the number of stunted girls. The results also indicate that investment in education for women may not necessarily break the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition and hence reiterate the crucial role of democracy and women’s agency in the allocation of public resources for education, health and social safety nets. More careful attention will need to be paid to direct nutrition interventions targeted at women of reproductive age and young children to tackle the future challenges.