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Effective international action against undernutrition: why has it proven so difficult and what can be done to accelerate progress?

Effective international action against undernutrition: why has it proven so difficult and what can be done to accelerate progress?
Effective international action against undernutrition: why has it proven so difficult and what can be done to accelerate progress?
Many transnational organisations work to support efforts to eliminate maternal and child undernutrition in high-burden countries. Financial, intellectual, and personal linkages bind these organisations loosely together as components of an international nutrition system. In this paper, we argue that such a system should deliver in four functional areas: stewardship, mobilisation of financial resources, direct provision of nutrition services at times of natural disaster or conflict, and human and institutional resource strengthening. We review quantitative and qualitative data from various sources to assess the performance of the system in each of these areas, and find substantial shortcomings. Fragmentation, lack of an evidence base for prioritised action, institutional inertia, and failure to join up with promising developments in parallel sectors are recurrent themes. Many of these weaknesses can be attributed to systemic problems affecting most organisations working in the field; these are analysed using a problem tree approach. We also make recommendations to overcome some of the most important problems, and we propose five priority actions for the development of a new international architecture.
undernutrition
0140-6736
608-621
Morris, Saul S.
1dcbd37e-9e00-43b9-bb6a-2323a5f0a1f0
Uauy, Ricardo
60dfd38e-ef39-48df-82bc-459f19fe5e22
Cogill, Bruce
f7b3256f-febb-4b9d-a50b-804bac981f6b
Maternal and Child Undernutrition Study Group
Morris, Saul S.
1dcbd37e-9e00-43b9-bb6a-2323a5f0a1f0
Uauy, Ricardo
60dfd38e-ef39-48df-82bc-459f19fe5e22
Cogill, Bruce
f7b3256f-febb-4b9d-a50b-804bac981f6b

Morris, Saul S., Uauy, Ricardo and Cogill, Bruce , Maternal and Child Undernutrition Study Group (2008) Effective international action against undernutrition: why has it proven so difficult and what can be done to accelerate progress? The Lancet, 371 (9612), 608-621. (doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61695-X).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Many transnational organisations work to support efforts to eliminate maternal and child undernutrition in high-burden countries. Financial, intellectual, and personal linkages bind these organisations loosely together as components of an international nutrition system. In this paper, we argue that such a system should deliver in four functional areas: stewardship, mobilisation of financial resources, direct provision of nutrition services at times of natural disaster or conflict, and human and institutional resource strengthening. We review quantitative and qualitative data from various sources to assess the performance of the system in each of these areas, and find substantial shortcomings. Fragmentation, lack of an evidence base for prioritised action, institutional inertia, and failure to join up with promising developments in parallel sectors are recurrent themes. Many of these weaknesses can be attributed to systemic problems affecting most organisations working in the field; these are analysed using a problem tree approach. We also make recommendations to overcome some of the most important problems, and we propose five priority actions for the development of a new international architecture.

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More information

Published date: February 2008
Keywords: undernutrition
Organisations: Medicine

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 70486
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/70486
ISSN: 0140-6736
PURE UUID: 64382b0c-959e-4d4f-8053-259ccc91a672

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Date deposited: 12 Feb 2010
Last modified: 13 Mar 2024 20:03

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Contributors

Author: Saul S. Morris
Author: Ricardo Uauy
Author: Bruce Cogill
Corporate Author: Maternal and Child Undernutrition Study Group

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