How can civil society organizations and the private sector contribute to good food and nutrition security

Good nutrition is the balance of nutrients intake against body demands, where the imbalance leads to either 'under-nutrition' or 'over-nutrition' - both of which are public health concerns. Good nutrition needs to be understood in the context of the wider food system, including the way that food connects to people’s every day economic choices. Close to a billion people in the world are suffering from chronic under-nutrition, mostly as a consequence of diets persistently inadequate in terms of quantity and/or quality, resulting from household poverties, chiefly income poverty. On the other hand, one-third of the world's population is now overweight or obese. Overweight and obesity were estimated to afflict nearly 2.1 billion adults worldwide in 2013, and 62 percent of these individuals live in developing countries.

Liberalization of agricultural trade and marketing has opened up a big role of the private sector, with implications on both demand and supply sides of the food markets. On the food demand side, private sector as the 'engine of economic growth’ is key for creating decent jobs that can afford the poor a living wage, specifically, food purchasing power, a necessary but not sufficient condition for good nutrition. On the food supply side, the private sector (companies) engaged in food value chain render direct services in food production, distribution, and retail - making food conveniently available to consumers - another important necessary but not sufficient condition for good nutrition.

While we recognize the private sector actors' important contributions to nutrition, we should be cognizant that their primary objective is profit maximization. In pursuit of cutting down business costs, so that they can remain in business, or indeed sheer appetite for more profits, private sector actors may pay their workers below the living wage rates. With low wages, the poor families cannot afford a nutritious diet, even if they have adequate knowledge of good nutrition. In response to price signals on the market, the private sector will be inclined towards supplying food commodities that are being demanded on the market, regardless of food values and diversity concerns from nutrition standpoint.

With liberalization of trade, many developing countries have opened up imports of highly processed, cheap foods. The domestic markets are flooded with foods padded with sugars and refined carbohydrates. Regulation by the national governments is less than optimal because large companies involved in that trade are able to exert pressure on them, effectively, seeming to have handed the power over nutrition to food processors, importers and retailers. On the other hand, healthier alternatives like high-fiber, low-fat fresh foods are generally more expensive and less affordable for the poor households than the less healthy ones. Compounding that is the fact the poor households, especially those in urban slums, often have limited access to storage and refrigeration, that narrows further their options.

So the poor households eat badly because it makes economic sense for them to do so. It is a logical response to a systemic problem, and nutrition education alone will not change what people eat. Governments must shift their attention from the individual to the system to understand the underlying reasons for poor nutrition among the poor households.

On the demand side, governments need to legislate, enact and/or reinforce minimum wages. This can be supported by the trade unions and other related civil society organizations (CSOs) in advocating for workers’ compensation and protection rights. On behalf of the workers, the trade unions should also directly engage in dialogues with private employers and governments for programmes to mitigate the impact of rising and volatile food prices on the local market. Related CSOs such as the consumer associations need to educate the society of their market rights and effectively advocate for enactment of food labeling and functional food safety standards checks by the appropriate government authorities. They should also negotiate with their governments to remove or reduce taxes on prices of targeted nutritious foods to promote their consumption. Governments need to rethink and act on the effects on good nutrition of the economic growth imperatives that have come about with the food trade liberalization, including the local market dominance by the highly processed.

On the supply side, governments should put in place policies and programmes that will make healthier food more available, accessible and affordable to the poor households. Governments need to provide incentives for production and/or importation of the targeted healthy foods. Governments need to address public infrastructure and services related to transportation and storage of healthy foods. Governments need to strengthen their market regulatory authority on food quality and safety standards, including checking the marketing and advertising that sends conflicting health messages.

Local CSOs are best suited to tackle structural causes of malnutrition in their respective countries because they have appropriate legitimacy in promoting nutrition rights of their members (that it, workers or consumers). On the other hand, CSOs in the form of foreign non-governmental organizations (INGOs) should offer capacity development support to local CSOs, without necessarily replacing their roles. The INGOs are best suited and should play an important life-saving role in supporting consumption among acute hunger victims of conflict and natural disasters, where local relief response capabilities are overwhelmed or inadequate. Limiting the role of foreign INGOs to short-term relief support and capacity development support of local CSOs, is also in order because,  foreign INGOs will not be there for all the time, that is, most projects by foreign INGOs are donor funded and short term in nature.