Much needed food aid being distributed in Sukkur, Pakistan. Photo: Rob Holden, UK Department for International Development (Flickr)

Malnutrition, which prevents children from reaching their physical and intellectual potential, is falling. The most significant cause? It's becoming a politically important issue in its own right.

Today, 925 million people do not have enough to eat. About 98 percent of those people live in developing countries and 60 percent are women. In sub-Saharan Africa, one third of all child deaths are caused by hunger.

But these rates are lower than they have been in the past. In Brazil and Peru, malnourishment in some regions has been nearly eradicated. A likely cause for these improvements is economic development: as economies grow, people should have more money for food.

But a recent study found no such correlation in many parts of the world. In Peru, a mining boom occurred that boosted the incomes of certain regions. But these regions were not those that saw the most dramatic drop in malnutrition rates. In Southeast Asia, where economies have been growing rapidly, hunger rates have not seen a corresponding drop. As the World Bank’s chief economist for South Asia describes it, "For a region that's clocked something like 6 percent growth on average over the past decade, the statistics on malnutrition are just truly astonishing and unacceptable.”

Growth hasn’t exactly led to glut for much of the developing world. But many regions have seen a sharp decline in hunger rates.

Children in Haiti waiting for food and school supplies to be distributed. Photo: UN Photo/Marco Dormino (flickr)

What caused the plummet? Proactive politicians. Increasingly, politicians are seeing tackling malnutrition as a means of getting elected. The humanitarian news and analysis service IRIN reports that malnutrition has been a neglected issue in the politics of many developing countries. One researcher from the Institute for Development Studies recalls being told by Indian journalists that hunger was a difficult issue to get past editors “because it’s not an election issue.” Looking at the figures for global poverty, it is easy to note that the world’s poorest tend to be the most politically neglected. This may be changing.

The study attributes this attitude shift to civil society networks that are getting better at lobbying governments, and to governments that are themselves becoming more responsive amid democratization of the developing world. According to the World Health Organization, “disparities in health outcomes between the poor and the rich are increasingly attracting attention from researchers and policy-makers, thereby fostering a substantial growth in the literature on health equity.” More attention has led to more action in many parts of the world.

Former Peruvian president Alan Garcia was elected on his “5x5x5” campaign, which pledged to reduce malnutrition for children under age 5 by 5 percent in 5 years. After his election proved it to be a popular issue, he raised the figure to 9 percent.

Some leaders learn the hard way that hunger is something to be taken seriously. In Niger, former president Mamadou Tandja all but banned the subject of hunger from the press. A growing hunger crisis led to his ouster in a military coup. Knowing that its power rested on a promise to provide food, the interim government acted quickly to coordinate relief efforts.

For most countries that have reduced malnutrition, success came after national governments began coordinating and implementing broad anti-poverty campaigns. In Malawi, the federal government began coordinating its own programs with those of non-profits operating in the country to increase efficiency and monitor what worked and what didn’t. Cash transfer programs that were established to incentivize behavior in the community best pulled people out of poverty. While international groups have been doing good work in Malawi for quite some time, it was the government’s engagement of the issue that proved crucial to increasing efficiency and providing real results. “The government’s remarkable engagement and leadership on fighting hunger and undernutrition cannot be overstated,” according to reports from Tripode Proyectos, the research group that conducted the study.

So malnutrition is being elevated in importance around the world. But it is still a huge problem. In Asia, Latin America, and Africa, despite recent improvements, malnutrition remains a leading cause of death for children. As many developing countries head for economic growth, this study should remind us that bigger GDP does not always mean healthier people. But prosperity should mean more money and resources to fight hunger, and politicians are learning that healthy voters are more likely to be happy voters.

According to one Peruvian governor, “In the past, politicians didn’t care about issues like nutrition, because children don’t vote. But now they have realized that their mothers do.”

Ben Osborn is a 2011 graduate of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

Over one billion people live on less than one dollar a day, according to the U.N. But what can you actually buy with a dollar?

It seems like something that would vary across countries. Luckily, the World Food Programme recently released a series of videos in which it seeks to answer that question. Country specialists in Nepal, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Guatemala, Somalia, Kenya, and the Philippines each went to their local markets with the equivalent of about one U.S. dollar and attempted to put together a meal. Watch as Reem Nada visits a market in Alexandria, Egypt.

The shorts are entertaining, but present a rather bleak reality. Almost all of the investigators come up short nutritionally. In Nepal, Deepesh Das Shresta leaves the market holding a few small bananas and a loaf of white bread. Meat is categorically too expensive, and staying within budget means many investigators can’t purchase all of the components necessary to create the meals that are considered cultural staples. It appears that those living on less than a dollar a day are also living far below their daily caloric and nutrient requirements.

Feeding oneself on less than a dollar is tricky business under the best of circumstances. Even worse, the recent volatility of the price of staple foods such as rice has jumped three times since 2008, says the New York Times — meaning that dollar must now be stretched even further.

The rest of the videos can be found on the World Food Programme website. The videos for Ethiopia, Kenya, and the Philippines are listed separately.

Margo Conner is a senior at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, majoring in international affairs. Read her other contributions to Global Envision.

Plumpy’nut is frequently used by humanitarian agencies in emergency malnutrition situations. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Humanitarian agencies have long been using protein and energy bars filled with nutrients and vitamins when responding to food emergencies. Though these "ready-to-use foods" are seen everywhere on grocery shelves in the West, they're often viewed as lifesavers when food crises strike the developing world.

BBC News recently highlighted the efforts of two British doctors, Steve Collins and Alistair Hallam, who saw the great results these easily accessible foods can have on malnourished populations. The doctors have taken the idea of ready-to-use foods even further with their company, Valid Nutrition, which manufactures foods supplemented with important nutrients found in meat and vegetables — foods most Africans can’t afford. While majority of emergency food packets contain high sugar concentrations and supplements that help in emergency relief areas, Valid Nutrition's products contain nutrients that are important in a person's daily diet and are sold at an affordable price. The company has opened manufacturing factories in various African countries, creating jobs for locals and helping the economy by using local crops.

Instead of only using these foods during emergency relief situations, the doctors want to help treat severe acute malnutrition, where a person's weight for height measurement is 70 percent below the median range due to food shortage and/or illness, according to the World Health Organization.

"The idea is to target people suffering from a less acute, but more widespread form of malnutrition that affects a staggering two billion people worldwide," reports BBC News.

Fortification of food for the developing world is not a new idea. Other companies such as Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, a Swiss nonprofit, has programs in various developing countries providing food for the poor. In fact, Gain is trying to put more market pressure on firms to “develop new, affordable nutritious foods by convincing business it is missing a vast untapped market.”

Photo: Pete Casier, UN World Food Programme (flickr)

When you think of North Korea, you may first think of the ongoing nuclear weapons debates and political squabble with the U.S. Yet according to the latest United Nations report, the most significant problem affecting North Koreans is the current shortage of food there.

The UN report found that more than three-quarters of North Korean families have cut their food intake to two meals per day. Even city dwellers are facing higher food prices. A recent Time magazine article says many children have stopped attending school due to hunger, while their parents search for food instead of going to work.

North Korea hasn’t seen such a devastating food crisis since the 1990s, when a famine took more than a million lives. Time blames the government for the current food shortage. In the 1990s, government officials privatized food distribution to some extent so that farmers could sell grains and food throughout the country. The result was that famished North Koreans could still find food. But in 2005, according to Time, the government broke up these markets and confiscated grain from farmers, leading to the current shortfall of production. Destructive floods in 2007 further hampered the country's agricultural production.

The UN also reported a rising number of children suffering from malnutrition and diarrhea. The food crisis guarantees more hunger-related deaths according to an expert on North Korean economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

North Korea’s leadership does not want to pursue market reform according to Nicholas Eberstadt, a North Korea expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He says allowing open markets to emerge in the state dominated food distribution sector would imply a significant change of Pyongyang’s policies. Major reforms are not a part of North Korean culture or government, a regime that requires government permission to own a cell phone or computer. However, without changes in policy and perhaps even ideology, Eberstadt predicts that North Koreans will continue to experience health-related problems if the government is unable to provide basic necessities such as food.

The World Food Program has expanded their food aid program in North Korea in hopes of reaching 6.5 million people. Without additional help from donor countries, North Koreans may see the 1990s famine repeat itself.