Are nutritional security and food interventions mostly palliative – helping to reduce immediate suffering without any real social value or long-term impact?
No. In fact, death rates correlate closely with malnutrition. Reducing malnutrition is not just a short-term containment of an affliction; it constitutes a powerful long-term investment. Without good nutrition, children cannot grow properly, and their long-term educability, productivity, entrepreneurship, citizenship and governance will be compromised. Nutrition and food security are fundamental to development. Actualization of the Millennium Development Goal to reduce hunger will require both structural reform, and interventions such as food aid that are instrumental to the realization of rights.
