Choose your own priorities on our interactive table

Issues: conflict l global warming l disease l hunger l terrorism

The Challenge

The food crisis has reminded rich nations of the hunger and malnutrition that is a daily reality for many in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

An introduction to the Copenhagen Consensus

Economists battle it out to rank possible solutions for the great challenges in global stability and security

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BACKGROUND

• Copenhagen Consensus: conflict

• Copenhagen Consensus: disease

• Copenhagen Consensus: global warming

• Copenhagen Consensus: hunger

• Copenhagen Consensus: terrorism

Malnutrition in mothers and their young children will claim 3.5 million lives this year. Global food stocks are at historic lows. Progress is distressingly slow on the United Nations goal of halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015.

Tragedy on an individual scale adds up to hardship on a national level. Shortened lives mean less economic output and income. Hunger leaves people more susceptible to disease so that more money has to be spent on healthcare.

Those who survive the effects of malnutrition are less productive. Physical and mental impairment means children benefit less from education.

Option One: Micronutrient supplements

Improving the quality of developing nation diets is as important as improving the quantity of food.

More than a hundred million children are deficient in Vitamin A, which causes eyesight and immunity problems.

It is estimated that a fifth of the world’s population is at risk of zinc deficiency, which can stunt growth among young children.

The numbers

Providing Vitamin A capsules to one person for a year costs just 20 cents. Zinc supplements cost a dollar.

Reaching 80 per cent of all children aged under-two in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would require annual spending of $2.4 million for Vitamin A, and $58 million for Zinc.

The economic benefits from improved future earnings and reduced healthcare spending would add up to $240 million each year. In other words, every dollar spent would generate economic benefits worth $17.

Option Two: Nutritional education

Another tack to consider is to encourage developing nation households to change their food practices, to create lasting dietary improvements.

Education would be more expensive than any of the shorter-term interventions like micronutrient supplements, but could create enduring improvements among the world’s poorest billion people.

Pregnancy and post-pregnancy are an opportune time to provide nutritional education to mothers, and can lead to a reduction in the probability of underweight babies and an increase in growth-rates for infants.

The numbers

Creating community-based, volunteer-managed education campaigns to cover 80 per cent of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa for one year would cost $798 million.

This would reach eight out of ten children aged under 2. The annual benefits from a reduced burden on the healthcare system and healthier population would equal $10 billion: the benefits are twelve times higher than the costs.

Other Options

Micronutrient fortification: Adding iron to basic food items like flour, to prevent anaemia, and iodising salt, to eliminate goitre

Biofortification: Breeding plants with a higher micronutrient content

Deworming: Providing two de-worming treatments annually for 80 per of children between ages 1 and 3, in Africa and South East Asia

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