During the past decades, IFAD has initiated many project activities designed to improve household food security (HFS) and the nutritional status of individuals through improving overall food availability and increasing income-earning opportunities. IFAD projects have improved smallholder farmers’ access to agricultural inputs, water resources, irrigation, markets and storage facilities. They have expanded opportunities for rural households to generate income through off-farm microenterprises by strengthening financial services, credit and training. Since its inception, the Fund has emphasized the targeting of services and investments to the rural poor, primarily serving the population groups most vulnerable to food insecurity and malnutrition.

Over time, IFAD has realized that increased agricultural production and rural incomes alone do not necessarily translate into stable, sustainable and adequate food consumption at the household level or improved nutritional well-being of individual household members. At its Fifty-first Session in April 1994, IFAD’s Executive Board adopted a comprehensive strategy to move its rural investment projects further towards improved nutrition. The strategy highlights the critical role of HFS as a ‘guiding principle’ for project design, and the importance of health and sanitation-related interventions for nutritional security, which should be sought mainly through inter-agency cooperation.

Since the enacting of IFAD’s nutrition strategy, significant efforts have been made to adopt the HFS concept in operational terms. A review of selected new IFAD projects revealed that, in most cases, HFS benefits were yet to be expressed in practical terms and that communities needed to be more actively involved in project design, monitoring and evaluation.

IFAD recognizes that there are no easy solutions to the multifaceted problems and causes of household food insecurity and malnutrition. The goal is rather to develop better and more user-friendly tools and systematically to sensitize staff, collaborators and policy-makers on relevant concepts and practical ways of addressing HFS and nutrition in IFAD projects.

Priority Areas for Action

In collaboration with its partners in development, IFAD intends to strengthen its HFS and nutrition orientation through multiple approaches:

• A stronger participatory analysis and gender perspective in project development, implementation and evaluation. Household food security strategies and primary causes for food insecurity and poor nutrition, as experienced by the target population itself, deserve more attention. Communities have to elaborate their own priorities and particular needs for public services. Programme and project activities would, thus, need to be analysed more sharply in view of their ultimate impact on HFS and individual nutritional status. As women are critical players in ensuring household food security and nutrition, any HFS and nutrition analysis has to start with a gender perspective.
• Investments in low-potential areas and in areas with a high concentration of malnutrition. This may mean the promotion of a broad range of activities in recognition of the lower agricultural potential and higher risk of these agro-ecological zones and the multifaceted nature of food insecurity and malnutrition.
• An enabling policy, sectoral and institutional environment for HFS and nutrition programmes. HFS and nutritional well-being require well-designed policies, programmes and actions beyond the household and community level. Community-based project interventions need to be supported by appropriate policies and programmes at the sectoral and macro levels and targeted investments to food-security and nutrition-relevant research.
• A more effective operationalization of HFS and nutrition objectives. This means the development and testing of more user friendly tools and practical guidelines for identifying the main problems of food insecurity, prioritizing appropriate interventions, monitoring impact and facilitating improved beneficiary participation. Such activities should include long-term investments in the analytical and planning capacity of programme and project designers and policy-makers in developing countries.
• Intensified inter-agency co-ordination of policies and actions. IFAD considers it critical to seek the synergy of a close and long-term relationship with its partners in the United Nations, bilateral donors, national governments, civil-society institutions and research organizations in carrying out complementary project activities and coordinating strategic project development to maximize the impact of the Fund’s assistance in HFS and nutrition initiatives.

Adapted from: IFAD Paper for the World Food Summit, November 1996