UN report stresses urgency to meet SDG to end hunger in AsPac region

IF the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on ending hunger will be met, around 100,000 people living in Asia and the Pacific could be lifted out of hunger everyday until 2030, according to a new United Nations report.

In a joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), World Food Programme (WFP) and World Health Organization (WHO), around 3 million people in Asia-Pacific a month must be lifted from hunger in the next decade.

With this tall order, FAO, Unicef, WFP and WHO called for urgent action to address hunger and malnutrition in all its forms. They also said countries must take decisive action placing nutrition at the heart of social protection programs.

“Social protection programs can help provide effective responses to shocks. They can build the capacity of vulnerable and poor households to manage risks and take early actions in predictable crises, and they can help ensure food security and nutrition in both normal times and during crises,” the report stated.

The report stated that some interventions that are being done by countries include the imposition of taxes on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) in the hope of curbing consumption of sugary drinks.

The Philippines imposed excise taxes in January 2018, raising the price by P6, or $0.12, per liter on SSBs made with caloric and noncaloric sweeteners and by P12, or $0.24, per liter on beverages made with high-fructose corn syrup.

The country, the report stated, is only 1 of 16 countries and territories in Asia and the Pacific that imposed taxes on SSBs.

The report added that half the Pacific Island countries and territories monitored by the WHO have taxes on SSBs, typically ranging from 7 percent to 15 percent.

It added that Brunei Darussalam, the Maldives and Sri Lanka are among the Asian countries to recently introduce SSB taxes.

However, the report stated that while these taxes have influenced consumption of sugary beverages, it has done little to promote weight outcomes. Therefore, the report said, a more holistic approach must be done.

“In designing and implementing SSB taxes, nutrient-profile models can be important tools for establishing criteria for determining which products are high in fat, sugar or salt and therefore should be taxed,” the report stated.

Apart from taxes on SSBs, the Philippines also reformed social protection programs to allow the poorest households to afford a wider variety of foods.

With the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the report stated that households who receive the conditional cash transfer (CCT) were able to increase spending for protein-rich foods.

“Social protection is an important way to help reduce inequality and mitigate the impacts of disasters, the report notes, and a special section on social protection explains that making programs nutrition-sensitive can accelerate progress in eradicating hunger and malnutrition,” the UN said in a statement.

“[The report] finds that such specific nutrition principles should be applied to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of social protection programs, both in normal times and in the face of shocks,” it added.

The report’s latest figures relating to hunger, including micronutrient deficiencies (also known as hidden hunger), child stunting and wasting make for grim reading amid the emerging nutritional complications brought forward by a crisis of overweight and obesity also sweeping the region.

It stated that the prevalence of stunting and wasting in the region remains high, with stunting rates exceeding 20 percent in a majority of the region’s countries. In the Philippines, around 30.3 percent are stunted.

In the region, an estimated 77.2 million children under five years of age were stunted in 2018, and 32.5 million suffered from wasting.

Meantime, overweight and obesity are also rising among both children and adults in Asia-Pacific, negatively affecting health and well-being.

The resultant burden of dietrelated noncommunicable diseases, like diabetes, high blood pressure and respiratory problems, is placing great strain on national health-care budgets and causing productivity losses.

“In many countries in the region, child undernutrition, overweight, obesity and micronutrient deficiencies are converging at the national level, in individual households and even, in some cases, in the same person. A multi-stakeholder approach is needed to address the multiple burdens of malnutrition,” the reports states.

Earlier, Unicef said the Philippines must invest $1 billion in the next 10 years to avoid the triple burden of malnutrition—stunting and wasting; micronutrient deficiency; and obesity.

This translates to an additional investment of $100 million annually, or around P5 billion every year. The level of this investment is not that high considering the alternative of underinvestment or worse, business as usual.

If the government continues on this path, the Unicef said the Philippines stands to lose 3 percent of its GDP annually. This equates to $4.5 billion, or P220 billion, annually.

Clearly, Unicef Philippines Nutrition Specialist Rene Gerard C. Galera Jr. said, investing $100 million annually is cheaper, especially given that a third of Filipino children are already stunted.