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Food Security and Food and Nutrition Surveillance in Central America: The Need for Functional Approaches

The specialized agencies of the United Nations launched the concept of food and nutrition surveillance (FNS) 15 years ago [1]. From the start it was broadly conceived and multisectorally focused [2]. At that time nutrition planning was seen as a tool to mobilize multisectoral development efforts with the goal of eradicating malnutrition. It was expected that FNS systems would provide information inputs into the planning process, particularly in identifying and giving priority rank to groups at nutritional risk, and that they could also be used to monitor interventions and to evaluate programme effects [3]. With the exception of Costa Rica, which has (for Central America) a relatively long history of social policies and programmes, nutrition planning efforts in Central America have largely failed to attract the needed political commitments for multisectoral efforts to reduce nutritional risks for the poor. Economic crises during the 1970s and 1980s, which produced sharply rising foreign indebtedness and inflation, saw a return to export-led development models and a low priority for the fulfilment of social needs, as public-sector resources available for social investment drastically declined. As the nutrition planning efforts failed to produce any significant effects, so did the FNS systems designed to support them. The recent Field-Berg debate in the literature about the fate and contributions of multisectoral nutrition planning [4; 5] has brought to light relevant and valuable lessons for the implementation process of FNS systems in Central America. Whether nutrition planning is alive and well is not the issue here (it still appears to be alive in theory, but not necessarily well in practice). But there are points on which Field and Berg agree, thus adding strength to the arguments. These points relate to data requirements in the planning process and focus on simplicity of methods and the need to support bottomup as well as top-down planning processes. They disagree on the question of how multisectoral nutrition planning should be. Again this point reveals an important consideration for FNS systems. Borrowing from some of the lessons learned as listed by Field [4], we raise four points for thought here within the context of the recent FNS experience in Central America. These points relate to FNS’s integration of decision making and data generation and interpretation, its multi-functionality, its multisectoral focus, and the process of implementing FNS systems. We feel that no simple recipes can be formulated. Instead, alternatives have to be considered by each country before settling on a system and an implementation process, with sufficient flexibility for continual adjustments in both.