Publication: Good Work--But Not Enough of It : A Review of the World Bank's Experience in Nutrition
Date
2006-06
ISSN
Published
2006-06
Author(s)
Heaver, Richard
Abstract
The World Bank has been a leader in
nutrition policy analysis, and many of the nutrition
projects it has supported have been innovative and
successful. But though the Bank has developed the economic
justification for large-scale investment in nutrition, and
has the experience needed to scale up, it has failed to do
so. Nutrition lending is an insignificant proportion of the
Bank's business, no more than 2.5 per cent of its
lending for human development. This level of effort is
inconsistent with what the Bank's analytical work has
found--that nutrition lending is one of the best economic
investments, and critical to progress toward the Millennium
Development Goals (MDG). There are significant institutional
constraints to scaling up in nutrition. The paper therefore
recommends that, if nutrition is to be put higher on the
Bank's agenda, its top management will need to be
involved in changing the institutional signals, through: (1)
emphasizing that, as a precondition of faster progress
toward the MDGs, improving nutrition is a Bank-wide
responsibility, not just the business of health staff; (2)
making 'improvement in nutritional status' a key
development outcome and measure of poverty reduction; (3)
creating institutional incentives for staff to focus on
nutrition; (4) increasing the Bank's staff capacity in
nutrition; and (5) raising a grant fund to help countries
and Bank country departments scale up.
Citation
“Heaver, Richard. 2006. Good Work--But Not Enough of It : A Review of the World Bank's Experience in Nutrition. HNP discussion paper series;. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/b917b3d9-2700-56d3-ac6c-0b39db662e3e License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”