The theme of the 1992 World Food Day teleconference on October 16 will be nutrition and the links between food, health and economic development.  This topic takes on special relevance this year because an International Conference on Nutrition, convened jointly by the food and health agencies of the United Nations, will be held just weeks later (December 5-11) in Rome, Italy.  The teleconference will be led by a distinguished international panel of experts and will place special emphasis on the experiences, problems and solutions of countries in the Western Hemisphere

Nutrition, always given lip service by governments but rarely high on the political agenda, is now coming to be seen in a new light — as both an outcome of and input to national development.  In all democratic societies, rich or poor, the cost of health care is soaring, while adequate nutrition is the foremost indicator of public health and well-being.  The very fact that a major UN conference is being convened to study these linkages indicates a new and important consensus among the governments of the world.  The teleconference will analyze some of the factors that have led to forming that consensus:

• Scope of the problem.  Nearly three decades after the World Food Conference pledged to eliminate hunger, there are still more than 500 million people suffering severe and chronic undernutrition, meaning that they don't get enough food day after day to support a healthy life.  Hundreds of millions of people — more than one in four of the human family — suffer from some form of malnutrition, over a billion from iron deficiency anemia alone.  In the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, although they are far richer and more economically advanced than other regions of the developing world, more than 60 million people live in chronic hunger, even as growing numbers are beginning to contract the overnutrition illnesses more commonly associated with the developed world — cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, some forms of cancer, alcoholism, hypertension and others.
• Children at risk.  Nutrition problems acquire a special moral dimension by the horrible toll exacted on the world's children.  About a quarter of a million infants and small children die each week from diet-related but EASILY PREVENTABLE causes.  Millions suffer partial or total blindness from a lack of Vitamin A, while many more are physically or mentally retarded from other micronutrient deficiencies and wasting.  More than 10 million children in the Latin American/Caribbean region are seriously underweight for their age (of 188 million worldwide in this category), and infant mortality, though it has fallen greatly over the past three decades, is still more than three times the average of the developed countries.  Moreover, such broad statistics hide enormous variation among and within countries.  
• Solutions are possible.  The critical factor in new thinking on nutrition is proof that solutions are possible, particularly in child protection. Former economic orthodoxy simply ruled that malnutrition and hunger were direct consequences of poverty, and therefore that only by raising GNP (and jobs and income) could the problem be ameliorated. Today it has been shown that the worst of the malnutrition problem can be overcome through public policy intervention that is affordable in almost all countries and that, in fact, policy decisions and program delivery may be more important than increased funding. What is most required, experts say, is political will plus intersectoral coordination.  Food security has to be matched by potable water and adequate sanitation, by basic nutrition education, by primary health networks (with special emphasis on maternity support and family planning), and by government monitoring of food and water safety

International support for developing country governments in all these areas is growing and is expected to increase sharply in the coming years.  Programs of the World Bank, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Agency for International Development and its European and Japanese counterparts, as well as other funding sources all are now in the process of allocating a higher proportion of their assistance to nutrition related programs.

Apart from the specific agenda of the International Conference on Nutrition, the teleconference panel will be asked to explore a number of basic themes:

1. The draft Plan of Action for the International Conference on Nutrition and evaluation of its goals and timetables.
2. Evaluation of Main nutritional problems in both rich and poor countries and the attempts being Made to solve them.
3. Nutritional priorities in development strategies for developing countries in an era of "structural adjustment."
4. Technological responses to malnutrition problems:  cost and effectiveness.

In preparing "middle hour" panels and presentations, teleconference sites are encouraged to consider how local, state and national nutrition Issues compare with the international perspective of the panel guests.  For example:  

• How much Malnutrition exists in the United States and why?  Is Malnutrition a problem in your state and if so, for whom and why?
• What local, state and federal programs are Most important in combating Malnutrition and how could they be changed or improved?
• How has urbanization changed American food habits and the nutritional status of poor people?
• How can we resolve the need to maintain food production while protecting our communities from agricultural chemical contamination?
• In public funding of nutrition programs, should a special priority be given to children over other vulnerable groups such as the aged, sick, unemployed?