Abstract

The recent famine in the Horn of Africa has focused world attention on tens of thousands of young children dying of starvation with many more expected. This situation is tragic and calls for immediate and sustained response. Yet the current “crisis” is merely the “tip of the iceberg” of a long-standing tragedy of child under-nutrition in much of the developing world. The majority of child deaths in these regions have an underlying cause of under-nutrition. Some improvement has occurred in this problem in recent decades; however, these improvements have been slow and are fragile, causing the potential for “crises” to occur. A former Secretary General of the United Nations, among many others, has called for a “green revolution” in Africa similar to that experienced in South Asia in recent decades. However, child under-nutrition remains higher in South Asia at 43% in 2009, than in sub-Saharan Africa at 22% in the same year. Although agricultural development is clearly needed in these areas, the problem and solutions are clearly more complex. We propose to examine a number of agricultural, economic, and social development factors which contribute to the problem of adequate nutrition for young children, and thus are potential candidates for a comprehensive solution to improve the lives and health of children. These factors include: GDP growth, land ownership, food vs. cash crops, food prices, percentage of population which is rural, governance, primary education, and gender parity in primary education. Thoroughly understanding the complex causation of undernutrition will help guide better policies and programs for a solution.