Nutrition and Food Fortification
Nutrition is integral to achieving the
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on
eradicating extreme poverty and hunger
and is instrumental in achieving the
MDGs on primary education, gender
equality, child mortality, maternal health,
and combating diseases. Research
shows that infant malnutrition plays an
important role in perpetuating poverty
and malnutrition across generations. The
evaluation identified four lessons.
- Recommendations should be
commensurate with the level of
nutritional risks and the capacity of
government agencies and
stakeholders in the country involved.
- ADB can play a catalytic role in
promoting good nutrition in the region.
- ADB-financed regional technical
assistance is a more cost-effective
intervention than determining activities
for a specific country, although there
are limitations to this approach
because of local dietary patterns and
other conditions.
- Food fortification has great promise for
improving nutrition, but it has to be
combined with household food security
and community nutrition initiatives.
The study found that capital costs in food fortification programs supporting quality
assurance and standardization are often neglected. Weaknesses in the scope of
some technical assistance activities and inadequate participation of some recipient
countries during the design stage reduced their impact on the development of
an effective nutrition policy for Asia and the Pacific. However, the overall
conclusion is that ADB, in coordination with other development partners, contributed
positively to promoting nutrition and food fortification. (For the full report,
see
www.adb.org/Evaluation.)