67 posts categorized "Economic Development"

The new government of President Otto Perez Molina has initiated a program called “Hunger Zero” to combat chronic malnutrition in Guatemala.  Despite being a so-called Middle Income Country (a rung above the poorest countries, as measured by the size of the national economy), chronic malnutrition remains a persistent problem, with rates in certain areas as high as those in the poorest countries in Africa.

According to the head of the Food and Nutritional Security Secretariat (SESAN), Luis Enrique Monterroso, the project will begin in the hardest-hit municipalities and then expand to all 166 municipalities affected significantly by hunger. Included in the Hunger Zero program are nutrition interventions focused on the 1,000 Days "window of opportunity," from pregnancy until a child's second birthday. The government has also created the Dignity Triangle program, which focuses on food availability, access, and nutrition education.

Bread for the World is a strong supporter of the 1,000 Days Partnership and the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement, which advocate for improved nutrition in pregnant women and children during this critical period. At this stage of life, the effects of malnutrition can cause irreversible damage to brain development, cognitive abilities, and resistance to diseases. Guatemala is also a supporter of these initiatives, which share key objectives with the new government’s anti-hunger programs.

The recently appointed head of SESAN happens to be a friend of Bread for the World! When Bread hosted the SUN Civil Society Working Group meeting that followed our 2011 National Gathering, Luis Enrique was there representing his country. His skills and commitment to ending hunger and malnutrition in Guatemala were evident to Otto Perez during his election campaign. He was asked to head this very important office, which is responsible for coordinating the efforts of 13 government ministries and reports directly to Guatemala's Vice President.

Todd Post, editor of Bread for the World Institute's Hunger Report, and I recently traveled to Guatemala and were able to meet with Luis Enrique in his new capacity. He is excited about the challenge before him and expressed his thanks for Bread for the World's support in giving him the opportunity to learn about SUN, which is just getting started in Guatemala.  He has already set an ambitious goal: reducing hunger by 10 percent within four years. He has also begun to work on Hunger Zero by identifying the 166 most malnourished of the country's 366 municipalities.

Guatemala is a country that faces many challenges – social, political, and economic. It is also a country that has correctly identified addressing the root causes of malnutrition as key to its future success.  Let’s follow the developments there and wish “our man in Guatemala” great success!

    Scott Bleggi is a senior international policy analyst with Bread for the World Institute.

Net migration is the net total of migrants during the period, that is, the total number of immigrants less the annual number of emigrants, including both citizens and noncitizens. Source: World Bank

 The H-2A agricultural guest worker program, although dysfunctional, will probably grow. The beginnings of a framework exist that envisions the H-2A program as a way to benefit both growers in the United States and sending communities in Mexico.

An interactive data timeline on net migration accompanies this excerpt from the 2012 Hunger Report on the relationship between migration and development:

Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) works on guest worker recruitment, education, and training issues on the Mexican side of the border—but it doesn’t address the impact of the United States’ H-2A agricultural guest worker program on the Mexican communities that send these workers. In fact, this is one of the most under-analyzed parts of the H-2A program. It is rare for anyone, including the Mexican government, to raise the concerns of sending communities. The reasons Mexicans leave home to become farm workers in the United States are often not part of this or most other discussions of immigration reform.

But there are the beginnings of a framework that envisions the H-2A program as a way to benefit both growers in the United States and sending communities in Mexico. The bi-national Independent Agricultural Workers’ Center (CITA by its Spanish acronym) is pioneering such a model; it plans to integrate the H-2A program with Mexican rural development efforts. 

Farm worker advocate Chuck Barrett founded CITA along the Arizona-Mexico border in 2007 to serve as a “matchmaker” between prospective Mexican guest workers and U.S. growers. For the past several years, CITA has been focused on helping workers on both sides of the border: in Mexico with the recruitment process, and in the United States with disputes between workers and growers.

CITA helps growers recruit workers in Mexico and assists in getting growers’ H-2A applications—which Barrett says are notoriously onerous—through the Department of Labor and other agencies. It also provides services to Mexican guest workers, including financial literacy information, low-interest loans to pay for guest worker visas, psychological counseling, and education on the guest worker system. In addition to the fees it earns from growers, CITA is supported by organizations such as Catholic Relief Services and the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

Barrett is hoping to expand the CITA model to become self-sustaining in rural communities throughout Mexico, saying that this expansion would help Mexican migrant-sending communities obtain “some beginning of control over migration, replacing illegal out-migration with legal migration.” According to this model, communities would be trained to facilitate worker recruitment, prescreen workers, and expedite the visa process—all tasks for which U.S. growers now pay CITA a fee. “Because they would be doing the training and passport process … they [Mexican rural areas] will get a portion to be used by the community to fulfill their own development objectives,” Barrett said. 

While Barrett—like almost everyone else—said that the H-2A program is dysfunctional, he also believes that its use will increase. “Whether people like it or not … H-2A is going to be a growing process,” he said. “Every version of AgJOBS includes an expansion of H-2A. I see the next couple of years as a window of opportunity to find alternatives … that are fairer for the workers and more effective for the employers, and also lend themselves … to connecting the migration process to the development process.”

CITA’s concept of connecting its H-2A employer services to rural development in migrant-sending Mexican rural communities is still on the drawing board. But based on the relationships they’ve forged through their outreach to growers and services to workers, Barrett and CITA executive director Janine Duron said that the program can be extended to the source of the immigrant farm worker issue—the poor Mexican communities that provide U.S. growers with both unauthorized and H-2A farm workers. “It’s an amazing relationship that can be built if you have reconciliation rather than adversity,” said Duron.

Reducing migration pressures will require development and job creation throughout Mexico, but poverty and migration are particularly concentrated in the countryside. Although about a quarter of all Mexicans live in rural areas, 60 percent of Mexico’s extremely poor people are rural, and 44 percent of Mexican immigrants come from rural communities. Immigration reform and development assistance need to be linked, particularly for rural Mexico.

After decades of declining support, agriculture and rural development is now re-emerging as a vital development focus. The World Bank’s 2008 World Development Report, Agriculture for Development, states, “Agriculture continues to be a fundamental instrument for sustainable development and poverty reduction.” Research has also found that agriculture is one of the best returns on investment in poverty-reduction spending. Each 1 percent increase in crop productivity in Asia reduces the number of poor people by half a percent. This correlation also holds for middle-income countries such as Mexico.

+ Read more from the 2012 Hunger Report on the issue of Farm Workers and Immigration.

Kate Hagen is Hunger Report project assistant at Bread for the World Institute.

Human growth and cognitive development depend on getting the right foods in early childhood. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl for Bread for the World.

Today, January 26, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, features a series of events on food security and nutrition. Every year, the Forum brings together  global decision makers, country leaders, economic innovators, and representatives of some of the world’s most influential organizations to seek effective solutions to pressing global problems.

Events today highlight the important role of partnerships in ensuring good nutrition during the 1,000-day "window of opportunity" between pregnancy and a child's second birthday. The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement supports countries in improving nutrition during the 1,000 Days.

SUN's press release notes: “The fact that nutrition is being highlighted as an essential issue at the World Economic Forum is an example of the SUN Movement’s inclusive approach, which recognizes that a range of sector and partners have a role to play in scaling up nutrition….

"Professionals from agriculture, social protection, and education are combining forces as they increasingly see good nutrition as an important part of their programs and an indicator of their success.”

In his piece yesterday in the Huffington Post, Dr. David Nabarro,the U.N. Secretary General's Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition, says: "The world will be changed forever if every child is well-nourished during their 1,000-day window of opportunity.

"Those of us working to further the SUN movement and our many partners around the world have seen the great potential nutrition has to give children a stronger start at life.

"Now, we are excited that leaders at Davos see an investment in nutrition during those 1,000 days as a tangible -- and achievable -- contribution to a stronger, more stable world for all."

Next week, February 1-2, Bread for the World will host Church Leaders for 1,000 Days, an ecumenical gathering to build the advocacy voice of the church for maternal and child nutrition. For more information, visit www.bread.org/womenoffaith1000days. 

Michele Learner is associate editor for Bread for the World Institute.

Improving nutrition among children is essential to the future of the United States. Unfortunately, childhood hunger and poor nutrition is not among the frequently-discussed issues of this primary season. 

Before the “First in the South” primary – South Carolina’s on January 21-- the candidates would do well to read the 2012 Hunger Report to hear about childhood hunger from South Carolina resident and public health expert Ed Frongillo:

“The idea that children are somehow protected from food insecurity by parents is a myth,” says Frongillo, professor of public health at the University of South Carolina. “Children are aware of the inadequate quantity or quality of food, the struggles that adults are going through to meet food needs, and the limitations of resources for meeting those needs.” 

The effects of multiple hardships on children have been well documented by Frongillo, Chilton and her colleagues at Children’s HealthWatch, and researchers elsewhere—and portrayed more bluntly in the images and words of Witnesses to Hunger. Violence, evictions, parental anxiety rising to crescendo as the month comes to an end and the refrigerator empties—the list goes on.

There is only so much any one program can do to soften the effects of these problems on children. But an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that SNAP lifts more families with children out of poverty than any other assistance program except the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). About half of all Americans will receive SNAP benefits at some point before age 20. Among African-Americans, the figure is 90 percent.

The EITC offers a tax refund, a lump sum payment that comes once a year and is ideal for paying down debt, fixing a busted car, dealing with a lingering medical problem, or other such expenses. Low-income working families find it difficult or impossible to budget for these items, because all their resources are simply consumed by day-to-day needs.

SNAP and other nutrition programs, on the other hand, come through for low-income families all year long. They also help the many people who have short-lived scrapes with hunger without experiencing the other hardships of poverty. This is why programs such as SNAP are so vital to meeting the needs of all families, regardless of the harshness of their environment.

Good nutrition is essential, while hunger and malnutrition before age 2 cause harm that is generally irreversible. In addition to providing foods needed for a healthy pregnancy and early childhood, WIC includes nutrition education and access to health care. The program has been proven to reduce rates of fetal mortality and low birth weight and to enhance the nutritional quality of a baby’s diet.

A landmark study in 1991 showed that every dollar spent on WIC saves the government between $1.77 and $3.13 in Medicaid costs for newborns and their mothers. The findings in the study and the strong support for the program from doctors and other medical professionals contributed to bipartisan support for steady increases in WIC funding to ensure that no family would be denied participation. But 20 years later—in spite of volumes of additional research that confirms the value of WIC—it seems that ideological differences among elected officials threaten funding for a cost-effective program with broad public support (94 percent in a 2010 study).

Cutting WIC, SNAP, and other nutrition programs goes against everything we know about the value of preventive care in saving on long-term healthcare costs.

Nutrition programs are one of the most cost-effective ways to control rising healthcare costs, which in the long run are a much greater threat to the nation’s economy than the cost of nutrition programs. Hunger makes people more vulnerable to chronic health problems. Intermittent hunger also contributes to binge eating and overeating to cope with stress and depression. Hunger in babies wreaks havoc on their metabolism and makes them susceptible to obesity later in life. And hunger among children affects cognitive development and leads to lower academic achievement.

Read more on the issue “Women and Children First” from the 2012 Hunger Report.

+The 2012 Hunger Report is available at www.hungerreport.org.

Kate Hagen is Hunger Report project assistant at Bread for the World Institute.

South Korea was a fitting site for the  Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF-4), held last week in the seaside city of Busan. As host, South Korea provided a concrete example of how aid can be an effective catalyst for development if it is supported by the values of transparency, mutual accountability, and strong multi-stakeholder engagement.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the Busan Forum      Photo Credit:Miriam Gathigah /IPS

For three days, delegates from governments and civil society all over the world met to review progress on implementing the principles of the Paris Declaration, which were articulated in 2005 as key ingredients in the effort to make development assistance more effective. In Busan, a main focus was how to maintain the relevance of the aid effectiveness agenda given the quickly changing development landscape.

Today’s foreign assistance landscape is drastically different from that of 20 years ago. Presently, more development actors are on the scene, and emerging donors are contributing to significant shifts in how foreign aid is given and used. Two decades ago, aid from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development‘s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries comprised about 80 percent of all global development assistance. Today, this amount is closer to 50 percent. Significant increases in assistance from non-DAC countries—notably Brazil, India, and China—are fueling this change.

But it’s important to note that although the international community often characterizes them as new or emerging donors, many of these countries have a long history of development cooperation. It’s just that non-DAC donors have been largely outside the traditional aid frameworks.

So far, there’s been no effective mechanism to bring together the diverse range of interests and perspectives of current development actors. Beyond financial resources, emerging donors bring distinctive philosophies, expertise, and modalities to their cooperation, often based on their shared development trajectories with their partner countries. Some of these are:

• A keen interest in transfer of technical and human capacities, which they view as at least as important as financial resources;

• A willingness to try newer approaches such as budget support and programmatic lending;

• An interest in helping to build infrastructure through public-private financing, which expands the range of financial instruments available for development.

Among the highlights of the Busan forum was the increased interest in signing onto the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). Transparency was one of the most widely discussed issues during the negotiations. Among the new signatories are the United States, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the U.N. Capital Development Fund, which all joined IATI last week.

The forum in Busan marked a turning point for international development cooperation. The outcome document - the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation- was signed by ministers of developed, emerging, and developing nations, leading partners in South-South cooperation, and civil society organizations. It calls for commitment from all partners to the shared principles of country ownership, results, transparency, and accountability that underpin the global partnership for effective development. The document acknowledges that while development cooperation is only part of the solution, it plays a catalytic and indispensable role in supporting poverty eradication, social protection, economic growth, and sustainable development. This declaration establishes the first-ever agreed framework for development cooperation that embraces traditional donors, South-South partnerships, emerging donors such as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries, civil society organizations, and private funders.

But this document alone is insufficient, and it doesn’t guarantee that traditional and new donors and partner countries will work together to improve the impact of aid on development. The commitments contained in the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation must be accompanied by strong political will and action.

With more players in the game now, donors and partner countries must strengthen development effectiveness by taking important measures:

•  Cooperation must be aligned to national development strategies. Moreover, these strategies must be developed through broad-based processes with the participation of civil society organizations, academic institutions, and independent media.

• Transparency and mutual accountability must be enhanced, including that of Southern donors and countries to each other and to their citizens.

Photo by Paul Alberghine, USDA/FAS

The USDA announced that it is investing $8.5 million in six organizations to research, produce, and field-test new or improved micronutrient-fortified food aid products in six countries: Cambodia, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Mozambique and Tanzania. The awards were made on the basis of proposals submitted under the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education Program.

The new products being developed are designed to meet the energy and nutrition needs of women, infants, and school-age children. Through this effort, USDA will identify products that can be programmed on a larger scale to address specific nutritional deficiencies among these groups. The McGovern-Dole Program helps low-income, food-deficit countries that are committed to universal education. It provides food donations, financial and technical assistance for school feeding, and maternal and child nutrition projects.

The awards were made under the Micronutrient-Fortified Food Aid Pilot Program. One previous award was made in 2010 for a company to test its ready-to-use, fortified dairy protein paste in a population of 4,000. The new or improved products include fortified rice, a lipid-based nutrient spread, a poultry-based fortified spread, a soy-fortified pudding, and a sorghum-cowpea fortified blended food.

This last product will be developed by Kansas State University, which is also developing other blended fortified food aid products recommended in Tufts University’s Food Aid Quality Review, prepared for the U.S. Agency for International Development. Among these are Corn Soy Blend 14 (CSB-14), which includes a component of whey protein, and Sorghum Soy Blend. The cowpea fortified food product is especially promising, since cowpeas are grown throughout Africa and if local products can be used, food aid program costs will be greatly reduced.

The United States is showing strong leadership in Maternal and Child Nutrition issues through its research and development efforts in these products. Food for Education complements the 1,000 Days partnership and the global Scaling Up Nutrition movement, which support nutrition early in life -- when it makes the most significant improvements in cognition, growth, and lifelong health.

Scott Bleggi is a senior international policy analyst with Bread for the World Institute.

Today, November 29, 2011, the seaside city of Busan, South Korea, is hosting the first day of the fourth high-level forum on aid effectiveness. At least 2,000 delegates will participate in three days of key discussions that will impact the future of development in significant ways.

Photo Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

In 2005, through the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, the international community embraced an ambitious set of commitments to improve the impact of development assistance. Today in Busan, we are taking stock of the progress made so far. To what extent have these commitments been implemented? Is aid being delivered in a more effective way?

Bread for the World Institute's latest briefing paper, Making Aid Work Better, makes a set of key recommendations to the U.S. government on improving the effectiveness of aid so that aid contributes to real development outcomes:

• Continue to elevate and maintain development as a national priority, in the face of a range of competing international and domestic agendas – to ensure that development aid is more predictable for the medium-term (the next three to five years), and that allocation decisions favor efficiency and reduce fragmentation.
• Make a push for a revitalized global effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and focus on the need for global public goods. Recognize that the world’s poorest and most fragile states need security and capacity, and that working with them means being willing to adapt “business as usual” and take risks.
• Lead the efforts to accelerate poverty reduction and growth in developing countries by encouraging the international community to fund capacity-building within countries. Inadequate technical capacities at the country level and donors’ unwillingness to use existing country systems has made it more challenging to make progress on implementing the existing commitments on aid effectiveness.
• Support a broad partnership that includes emerging economies as well as private actors and nongovernmental organizations, and is based on clear and transparent communication.
• Continue to push for a focus on development outcomes and measurable results that are reported in ways readily accessible to the public.

 +The 2012 Hunger Report is available at www.hungerreport.org.

Faustine Wabwire is a foreign assistance policy analyst with Bread for the World Institute.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is poised to sign a five-year Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) compact with Indonesia—the first such compact to include a nutrition component, “Community-Based Nutrition to Reduce Stunting.”

More than 35 percent of Indonesia’s babies and toddlers under age 2 are stunted, meaning they have a highly visible sign of malnutrition--being significantly shorter than average children of their age. There is growing global attention to this age group, often called the 1,000 day window between pregnancy and age 2, because the consequences of malnutrition for such young children are death for some and lifelong, largely irreversible damage to the health and development of those who survive. A higher risk of death in infancy and early childhood, increased susceptibility to infection and illness, and impaired cognitive abilities caused by early nutritional deficiencies have been well documented in a growing body of scientific evidence, dating to 2006 with the Copenhagen Consensus and followed by studies done by the World Bank and by a series of studies by the respected medical journal The Lancet. Research has also found that survivors of early childhood malnutrition complete fewer years of school and are less productive on the job, which causes countries long-term economic loss.

 
Photo credit:  USAID

The 1,000 Days Partnership, on which Bread has reported previously, champions new investments and partnerships to improve nutrition during this critical period.  Indonesia recognized that taking action against malnutrition during the 1,000-day window must be a top national priority. Its five-year national development plan called for a program of prevention.

Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world, with more than 140 million people living on less than $2 a day. The country’s high prevalence of stunting is a legacy of a health service delivery system that lacks capacity at the local level. The Community-Based Nutrition to Reduce Stunting project will work with communities and health systems to “strengthen the demand for and supply of appropriate services to reduce chronic malnutrition among children.” Designed with the participation of local governments, civil society, and the private sector, it will build on an existing program that involves communities in taking action to improve targeted health, education, and nutrition indicators.  Stunting will be reduced by strengthening community engagement, nutrition and sanitation services delivery, and national awareness and advocacy. The project proposes to reach 1.4 million beneficiaries in rural Indonesia.

The MCC administers Millennium Challenge Account funding. Back in 2002, Bread members were instrumental in persuading Congress to establish the program, which makes multi-year grants to promote inclusive economic growth that reduces poverty. To qualify for MCC funds, countries must be low-income or lower-middle-income (meaning that their per capita incomes are less than about $4,000 a year), and they must satisfy set criteria such as investing in the well-being of their people and fighting corruption.

Bread for the World Institute has long been a champion of increased focus on improving maternal and child nutrition. In our 2009 briefing paper, New Hope for Malnourished Mothers and Children, the Institute noted that the Millennium Challenge Corporation was under-investing in nutrition—especially given the importance of nutrition to economic growth. We are encouraged by Indonesia’s plan for this compact and applaud MCC for taking this important step forward.  We look for additional countries to improve nutrition outcomes, especially in pregnant women and children.

 
  Scott Bleggi is a senior international policy analyst with Bread for the World Institute.

According to information released this morning by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET), famine will persist for at least another month in areas of Somalia. Due to the consistent delivery of food aid and emergency supplies since the crisis began, some areas previously have been downgraded from Integrated Food Security and Phase Classification (IPC) 5, meaning “famine”, to IPC Phase 4 “emergency”.

However, according to FEWS NET officials nearly 250,000 people continue to face imminent starvation and death rates, especially among children, remain extremely high, in part due to continuing outbreaks of measles, cholera and malaria. The death toll thus far is “tens of thousands”, and food security in Somalia is the worst since the 1991/92 famine. A continued multi-sectoral response (food, water, sanitation, health, security) is still required and any significant interruption to deliveries will result in a return to famine.

The ongoing famine results from the complete lack of rain during two traditional rainy periods (Oct-Dec 2010, and Apr-Jun 2011) that contributed to crop failures, high levels of animal mortality and very high food prices. While continued, large-scale responses are critical, the flow of local and donated cereals to markets in Somalia indicate that earlier market-based interventions are working.

As we gather with family and friends this Thanksgiving, let’s say a prayer for the return of rain to Somalia and an end to the ongoing crisis there.

Scott Bleggi is the senior international policy analyst in Bread for the World Institute

Preventing child malnutrition during the 1,000 days from pregnancy to age 2 is vital to ensuring healthy development and avoiding irreversible damage, including diminished intellectual capacity, impaired immune function, shorter height, and impaired vision. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl.

Next Monday, November 21, we will release our 2012 Hunger Report, Rebalancing Act: Updating U.S. Food and Farm Policy. Yesterday, Senior Editor Todd Post mentioned here that the report’s timing dovetails with key decisions about farm bill reauthorization. The report also looks at how the United States responds to hunger and malnutrition overseas with food aid and development assistance — a topic practically ripped from the headlines as famine deaths continue in the Horn of Africa.

Did you know that malnutrition in pregnant women, babies, and toddlers up to their second birthdays has lifelong consequences? In the Hunger Report’s Chapter 4, we look at this critical 1,000 Days window and how a growing body of scientific evidence shows that nutritional interventions during this time can save lives and prevent lifelong disability — all in a very cost-effective way.

As health workers and development programs seek to scale up these proven strategies, it’s an opportune time to improve the nutritional value of U.S. food aid, which helps millions of people every year. Many of them are young children who have survived famine, war, or drought.

In the report, we talk about the latest developments in food aid products, the target populations for their use, and how their effectiveness in treating severe acute malnutrition outweighs their slightly higher cost. The newest food aid products — being distributed today in parts of the Horn of Africa — are almost miracle foods. They are densely packed with calories, vitamins, and minerals. Some of them can be produced right in the country where they are needed, which lowers their cost and makes them more readily available. We feature the story of Gustavo, who today is a healthy 2-year-old in Mozambique thanks to timely nutrition interventions. It really is remarkable to see how quickly a child can recover from near-starvation with proper, nutritious food and community-based action.

Improving the nutritional quality of food aid is a daunting challenge in the context of a shrinking federal budget. We look at the physical process of moving food from the United States to starving people overseas, and how food aid is programmed for general distribution or therapeutic feeding. We suggest ways in which costs can be lowered -- such as by adopting local and regional purchase procedures, coordinating aid efforts more closely, and reporting nutrition outcomes so that the most effective food aid products continue to be used.

Chapter 4 also emphasizes that increased support for research in agriculture will be critical to meeting growing global demand for food in the next decades. In fact, we raise questions that cannot be answered without additional funding for research and development — for example, “How can agriculture most effectively improve nutrition in countries with high malnutrition rates?” Building local capacity in production, marketing, storage, and delivery is another key to meeting future food needs. 

If you’re interested in seeing why fighting malnutrition is so important to improving food security and health, then you’ll want to look closely at Chapter 4, “Rebalancing Globally,” when the 2012 Hunger Report is released November 21.

+The 2012 Hunger Report will be released at www.hungerreport.org on Monday, Nov. 21.

Scott Bleggi is a senior international policy analyst with Bread for the World Institute.