Context-specific food-based approach for ensuring nutrition security in developing countries: a review

Abstract

Sustainable food strategies for meeting nutrient needs in developing countries are not well established. The available evidence shows that more than one-third of the world’s population is facing under-nutrition, of which the most affected individuals are children and mothers from poor countries. In most developing countries, losses resulting from malnutrition are between 3 and 16% of the gross domestic product. This burden is far larger than the donor-driven and government programmes can tackle alone. As such, an innovative approach, which is independent and not donor-based, is needed to reduce the burden of malnutrition in low-income countries. In this review, we describe a context specific food-based approach for addressing malnutrition in developing countries. The approach deploys the hybrid public–private delivery model that enables cost sharing and efficiency gains in resource-poor countries. The model influences players to consider consumers’ perspectives, which often are neglected and truly engage them as key stakeholders.

Keywords:

• Malnutrition
• food-based approach
• hybrid-delivery model
• context-specific intervention
• developing countries

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Stephen A. Vosti and Reina Engle-Stone (University of California, Davis), Christina N. Charles and Joseph Pesambili for sharing their expertise and perspectives on these topics and providing feedback on early versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

All authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.