Food security lessons from exemplars in stunting reduction

Food security is a core and underlying factor in the prevention of childhood linear growth faltering (i.e., stunting), but crises related to climate, conflict, and disease continue to jeopardize the nutritional status of children and mothers. The Exemplars in Global Health’s stunting reduction project studied countries with outsized reductions in stunting to systematically document strategies, policies, and programs that led to declines, while highlighting relative impacts of key domains. Food security lessons from Senegal, Ethiopia, Peru, and the Kyrgyz Republic are presented in the accompanying chapter. Exemplar countries were identified through an expert technical advisory group. Mixed methods (i.e., quantitative, qualitative, policy, literature reviews) were used to triangulate country findings through a consortium of in-country and global research partners. Evidence from Exemplar countries provided clear framing for understanding and addressing food insecurity across the domains of governance, food availability, food access, and management of acute events. In decomposition analysis, food security-related factors were responsible for 29-68 percent of explicable change. Policy analysis highlighted the roles of governance structures for maintaining sustainability; land reforms and the implementation of agricultural technology to increase food availability; cash transfers and social programming to increase household purchasing power and access to foods; and preventive and emergency management systems to help respond to acute events.