SCN News No 34 - UNSCN

32 FEATURES
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Private Sector Contributions To Ending Child Hunger and Undernutrition
Roger Shrimpton, Secretary of the SCN
Introduction
The need for greater private sector engagement in efforts to achieve a world free from hunger and malnutrition
is well recognized (SCN 2006a). The private sector here concerns all those “for profit” enterprises,
whether: large or small; local, national or global; formal or informal. The Commission on Nutrition Challenges
of the 21 st Century clearly identified the critical need for co-operation between food industry, science, the
regulators and legislators at all levels and initiate continuous dialogue between the various sectors to implement
schemes that will help to eliminate undernutrition as well as limit the development of age and diet
related chronic diseases (James et al 2000). The Commission proposed that a multisectoral partnership
needs to be built to work closely on specific issues relating to technology development, food processing and
marketing, free market approaches with minimum price support mechanisms, standards, quality assurance,
product certification, social communication and demand creation, monitoring and evaluation. Guidelines on
these issues should then gain acceptance and be implemented at the country level. The purpose of my paper
is to explore not just “what” the private sector can contribute and “why” private sector engagement is so
important, but also “how” this engagement should be conducted. In the context of our overall theme of understanding
how best to “work together”, the “how” dimensions are particularly important.
Why the private sector is important
Within the private sector, the agro-food industry has an increasingly important influence and role to play in
making the modern world free from hunger and malnutrition. The increase in the world population from one to
six billion in the last two centuries was largely made possible by the industrialization of the food chain, from
farming methods through to food processing, packaging and storage technologies. One of the consequences
of the industrialization of the food chain has been the reduction in the number of plant and animal species
that form the basis of our diets. Today over 80% of the population rely on just four staple crops, which the
food industry turns into a myriad of processed foods. In the USA alone there are upward of 17,000 new food
products registered each year. With 60% of the 8 billion population projected for 2030 likely to be living in
urban areas, the agro-food industry will continue to grow and remain an important motor of economic growth
in most countries. The challenge is to harness this sectors potential to contribute to achieving a world free
from hunger and malnutrition, in addition to its primary mission of making profits for its shareholders.
The importance of the private sector wealth has grown by leaps and bounds since the industrial revolution
began two centuries ago. The world is richer today than ever before with the world’s average per capita
income increasing nine fold in this period when population increased just six fold (Sachs 2005). The average
increase in income has been even greater in today's rich countries, increasing twenty five fold in the US and
fifteen fold in Europe. In consequence today we have far greater disparities in the incomes of nations than
ever before. The gap is twenty fold between Africa and the USA, the strongest world economy. Before the
industrial revolution the biggest gap was just fourfold between the UK, the wealthiest nation, and Africa. The
disparities are even bigger in terms of accrued wealth than they are for income (Davies et al 2006). The
richest 1% of the worlds adults, 37 million people with assets of at least half a million dollars, own 40% of
global assets. The combined assets of the 125 richest people in the world exceed the combined gross
domestic product of the 50 least developed countries.
In today's "Davos World" the power and influence of private sector wealth gets stronger as that of the nation
state diminishes. Indeed almost half of the world’s 100 largest economies are those of transnational
corporations. At the same time the powers of any state are becoming more diffuse with the emergence of the
Brazilian, Indian and Chinese economies, and of increasingly powerful energy rich states in Russia, Saudi
Arabia, and Iran. Advances in mass communication and travel together with greater individual and corporate
wealth, make the world increasingly difficult place for states to govern, or even for a small group of the more
powerful states to try to control events.
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