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Taking successful development interventions to scale is critical if the world is to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and make essential gains in the fight for improved agricultural productivity, rural incomes, and nutrition. How to support scaling up in these three areas, however, is a major challenge. This collection of policy briefs is designed to contribute to a better understanding of the experience to date and the lessons for the future.
The stories in this book are diverse, spanning five decades and playing out in different arenas, from local to global. They take place in developing countries all over the world, and they involve many sectors and disciplines beyond nutrition itself, including health, agriculture, education, social protection, and water and sanitation. Most importantly, they paint a nuanced picture of success as a context-specific achievement that may, or may not, endure into the future.
The fundamental purpose of agriculture is not just to produce food and raw materials, but also to grow healthy, well-nourished people. One of the sector’s most important tasks then is to provide food of sufficient quantity and quality to feed and nourish the world’s population sustainably so that all people can lead healthy, productive lives. Achieving this goal will require closer collaboration across the sectors of agriculture, nutrition, and health, which have long operated in separate spheres with little recognition of how their actions affect each other. It is time for agriculture, nutrition, and health to join forces in pursuit of the common goal of improving human well-being. In R...
As women's labor force participation has risen around the globe, scholarly and policy discourse on the ramifications of this employment growth has intensified. This book explores the links between maternal employment and child health using an international perspective that is grounded in economic theory and rigorous empirical methods. Women's labor-market activity affects child health largely because their paid work raises household income, which strengthens families' abilities to finance healthcare needs and nutritious food; however, time away from children could counteract some of the benefits of higher socioeconomic status that spring from maternal employment. New evidence based on data f...
Controlling a major infectious disease outbreak or reducing rising rates of diabetes worldwide is not just about applying medical science. Protecting and promoting health is inherently a political endeavor that requires understanding of who gets what, where, and why. The Oxford Handbook of Global Health Politics presents the most comprehensive overview of how and why power lies at the heart of global health determinants and outcomes. The chapters are written by internationally recognized experts working at the intersection of politics and global health. The wide-ranging chapters provide key insights for understanding how advances in global health cannot be achieved without attention to political actors, processes, and outcomes.
Many development programs that aim to alleviate poverty and improve investments in human capital consider womens empowerment a key pathway by which to achieve impact and often target women as their main beneficiaries. Despite this, womens empowerment dimensions are often not rigorously measured and are at times merely assumed. This paper starts by reflecting on the concept and measurement of womens empowerment and then reviews some of the structural interventions that aim to influence underlying gender norms in society and eradicate gender discrimination. It then proceeds to review the evidence of the impact of three types of interventionscash transfer programs, agricultural interven...
Over the past two decades, existing documentation of women in the agricultural sector has surveyed topics such as agricultural restructuring and land reform, international trade agreements and food trade, land ownership and rural development and rural feminisms. Many studies have focused on either the high-income countries of the global North or the low-income countries of the global South. This separation suggests that the North has little to learn from the South, or that there is little shared commonality across the global dividing line. Fletcher and Kubik cross this political, economic, and ideological division by drawing together authors from 5 continents. They discuss the situation for ...
This report summarizes the findings of a study commissioned by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund. The study sought to hear directly from women, and those who influence them – health professionals, partners, family members and friends – about their exposure to and experience of formula marketing. It exposes the aggressive marketing practices used by the formula industry, highlights the impacts on women and families, and outlines opportunities for action
Child marriage has been given a pre-eminent place in agendas addressing “harmful practices” as defined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. India leads the world in the number of women who marry below the age of 18 and is therefore of unique interest to international and national forums. Refusing simplistic labels like “harmful practice”, this book explores the complex history of child marriage as a social and feminist issue in India across different domains. It critically reviews a wide range of historical, demographic, and legal scholarship on the subject. Major concepts relevant to child marriage – such as childhood, adolescence, the girl, and marriage − are an...
Vietnamese food systems are undergoing rapid transformation, with important implications for human and environmental health and economic development. Poverty has decreased, and diet quality and undernutrition have improved significantly since the end of the Doi Moi reform period (1986-1993) as a result of Viet Nam opening its economy and increasing its regional and global trade. Yet poor diet quality is still contributing the triple burden of malnutrition, with 25 percent stunting among children under age 5, 26 percent and 29 percent of women and children, respectively, anemic, and 21 percent of adults overweight. Agricultural production systems have shifted from predominantly diverse smallh...