Of the world’s 6 billion people, about 800 million do not have enough to eat. Globally, nutrition has improved in recent decades, but malnutrition—including deficiencies in micronutrients—is still widespread. Hunger, combined with low intake of important micronutrients such as vitamin A, zinc, iron, and iodine, contributes to low birth weight, infections, and increased risk of death. In developing countries, close to 24 percent of all newborns have impaired growth due to poor nutrition during fetal development. About 33 percent of all children under the age of five are stunted. Because of iron deficiencies, about 2 billion people worldwide suffer from anemia, and 9 out of 10 of them live in developing countries.
Improving nutrition will continue to be a challenge, and the current move toward accelerated globalization can play either a positive or a negative role in reducing malnutrition and hunger. Policies that reduce the negative and enhance the positive effects of globalization on nutrition and groups most at risk will be needed, at both the international and national levels.
Global expansion of agricultural trade and finance can prevent fluctuations in food supply, thereby enabling developing countries to import food at adequate and stable prices. Three-fourths of the world’s poor live in rural areas and depend—directly and indirectly—on agriculture. In about 25 percent of developing countries more than two-thirds of total exports are agricultural commodities. Improved market access for these countries can increase agricultural exports, thereby increasing foreign exchange earnings and imports of food (and capital goods). Raising the level of income and employment among low-income rural families also increases the amount of food poor people can afford and protects them from higher food prices in the event of shortages in domestic markets.
The globalization of advances in technology and transport can improve traditional methods of agricultural production and marketing, contributing to the achievement of food security and providing access to better nutrition in the long run. Poor populations often lack access to markets, information, and communication technologies, putting them at a competitive disadvantage in world markets. However, recently developed technologies could be adapted to the constraints faced by developing countries and the poor. For example, wireless phones require a lower capital investment to set up and are particularly suited to remote locations.
Improved access to information and data via the Internet can allow researchers and policymakers to learn about new nutrition initiatives, share information, obtain best practices, and map food production and undernutrition by country and by regions within countries. Information networks can provide a forum for debate on nutrition-related issues, increasing global awareness.
The integration of labor markets gives the poor and malnourished a greater variety of employment possibilities and opportunities to acquire and diversify their income. The growth in relatively labor-intensive, long-distance services—data processing, software programming, clerical and professional services—could increase the commercial service exports of developing countries. These opportunities indirectly offer potential improvements in nutrition, but there is also the risk that malnourished and unhealthy individuals may not be able to capture these jobs.
Despite its potential for improving nutrition, several aspects of the globalization process may worsen human nutrition in developing countries. Increasing trade could create a major shift in the structure of diets, resulting in a growing epidemic of the so-called “diseases of affluence.” Traditional, low-cost diets, rich in fiber and grain, are likely to be replaced by high-cost diets that include greater proportions of sugars, oils, and animal fats, giving rise to higher food costs and an increase in weight gain, obesity, and associated chronic diseases that affect children and adults alike. Aggressive promotion of such goods by producers and distributors can further accelerate adverse changes in diet. In China, for example, the number of overweight adults jumped by more than half—from 9 to 15 percent—between 1989 and 1992. These problems are no longer limited to the well-off. A recent IFPRI study found that a large share of poor Asian households have at least one obese member.
In addition to potentially harmful dietary changes, huge cross-border capital flows leave developing countries particularly vulnerable to international economic fluctuations. For example, recent evidence from Indonesia, whose economy was badly hit during the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 and 1998, shows an increase in poverty and nutritional deficiencies for that period.
The impact of globalization on nutrition also depends on the domestic policies of industrialized countries. While efforts have been made over the years to improve market access, developed countries are still reluctant to open up their domestic markets. Distorting policies and high tariffs, sometimes 100 percent or higher, set for meat, dairy, and other products in the U.S., Europe, and Japan, restrict trade in products of particular importance to poor farmers in developing countries—a situation that denies them the benefits of trade liberalization and increasing globalization.
As globalization proceeds, food safety standards are becoming more uniform across countries. For groups already at risk nutritionally, elevating these standards could mean a trade-off between food safety and food security. The safety concerns of developed countries may further restrict market access for food products from developing countries. Farmers in developing countries may not be able to meet the standards because they lack the adequate institutions and infrastructure. In addition, imposing these standards on developing countries could result in higher food prices for poor consumers.
An urgent task for the international community is to help developing countries become better integrated into the world economy. This can be done by helping them build up needed supporting institutions and policies, by helping them adjust to and comply with international agreements and terms of trade, and by enhancing their access to world markets,.
Reducing the high, trade-distorting barriers that are in place in most industrialized countries would facilitate developing countries’ market access and create a favorable environment for agricultural development in these countries. Progress has been made in reducing tariff barriers on unprocessed tropical products like coffee, tea, and cocoa. Many more developing countries would benefit if similar improvements in market access were granted for other agricultural products, such as temperate-zone horticultural products, sugar, cereals, and meat, as well as for processed agricultural products. Multilateral liberalization would also substantially increase world prices for these commodities, thus benefiting producers.
The nutrition and health communities must respond to problems of unhealthy diets and overnutrition. While the stigma against obesity is absent in most developing countries, people affected by these trends will be hurt in the long run if measures to address them are not taken. Through cost-effective nutrition interventions, education programs, and dissemination strategies, an infrastructure must be set up to help foster a balanced and low-cost diet that will limit the risks of obesity and coronary disease. New policies should encourage the production and marketing of vegetables, fruits, legumes, and a variety of other foods of plant origin, along with decreasing support for the production of fat, sugar, and fatty, sugary foods and drinks.
Modern science and new technologies in information, biology, and communications can provide the poor and malnourished with a voice in policymaking and the tools to become more effective at facing the competitive forces and risks brought about by globalization. For such opportunities to materialize, innovations must be specifically targeted to solving the nutritional and agricultural problems of these groups. For example, while science based on molecular biology is moving at great speed, its application to small-scale agriculture in developing countries has thus far been limited to cotton in China. If focused on reducing hunger and malnutrition, biotechnology could help combat widespread nutritional problems such as iron and vitamin A deficiencies.
Improvements in health care and access to drugs must also be facilitated. The World Health Organization estimates that only eight percent of the $50 to $60 billion in health research worldwide goes to diseases that afflict people in developing counties. Given the synergy between nutrition and health, targeted research and health interventions can contribute significantly to the promotion of nutritional well-being. A health infrastructure capable of delivering comprehensive care and adequate follow-up can help identify and rehabilitate people who are malnourished. At the same time, the access of poor people to essential medications at affordable prices must be protected.
In countries exposed to globalization, the role of the public sector in many areas of food security and nutrition appears to be shrinking, while the involvement of civil society and the private sector is increasing. Such a shift may be appropriate, but globalization should not substitute for appropriate national policies. Recent research and experience shows how important an effective public sector is in areas related to nutrition and food security. Access to land, primary education, primary health care, and other pro-poor policies become even more important as the at-risk groups are exposed to the competitive forces, risks, and opportunities brought by globalization. Governments should assess how globalization will affect at-risk populations, determine whether they can limit the negative impact, and design and implement compensatory schemes and safety nets where needed.
Good governance is needed to guide the transformation of the agricultural sector in a direction beneficial to the poor. Inadequate domestic policies and lack of access to resources and markets are presently making it difficult for the poor to gain from globalization. Governments should ensure that markets remain competitive. They need to implement the appropriate policies and make the necessary changes that will reduce marketing costs and price distortions and allow the agricultural sector to benefit from new technological opportunities.
For further reading, see ACC/SCN (Administrative Committee on Coordination/Subcommittee on Nutrition of the United Nations), Fourth Report on the World Nutrition Situation (Geneva: ACC/SCN in collaboration with IFPRI, 2000); A. Drewnowski and B. M. Popkin, “Dietary Fats and the Nutrition Transition: New Trends in the Global Diet,” Nutrition Reviews 55 (No.2, 1997): 31–43; and Z. Qureshi, “Globalization: New Opportunities, Tough Challenges” http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/1996/03/pdf/qureshi.pdf (a 1995 paper based on a World Bank report, Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries 1995).
Julie Babinard (j.babinard@cgiar.org) is a senior research assistant at and Per Pinstrup-Andersen (p.pinstrup-andersen@cgiar.org) is the director general of IFPRI.