| Abstract: | Since the early 1980s nutritional levels have deteriorated in Latin America. A growing number of multinational and bilateral assistance agencies have intensified ongoing efforts at incorporating nutrition components into the formulation of agricultural, fisheries and development projects. The main focus is on measures that would reduce additional deterioration of nutritional status. This paper reviews the response of bilateral and multilateral development agencies to the situation and outlines some practical options of systematically incorporating nutrition considerations in the formulation of agricultural, rural, urban, educational, housing, health and industrial projects. The Sub-Committee on Nutrition (SCN) of the UN Administrative Committee on Coordination has served as a clearinghouse for information on the subject. In spite of the SCN efforts to work closely with nutrition authorities of bilateral and multinational development aid agencies, nutrition has not yet become an integral component of rural or urban development projects. A number of workshops have been sponsored by the SCN and by other agencies such as the International Development Bureau (IDB); their goals and aims are reviewed and it is concluded that to incorporate nutritional considerations into development projects requires overcoming image barriers to the effect that nutrition activities are complex, costly, difficult to administer and economically not readily justifiable. |
