Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program
Description
The Cornell Food and Nutrition Policy Program (CFNPP), created in 1988 within the Division of Nutritional Sciences, conducts applied research and engages in technical cooperation and training on issues of poverty, human resource development, and food and nutrition policy in developing countries and in transition economies of Eastern Europe. Of particular interest is how the pattern and structure of growth, as mediated by economic policies, affect poverty, health and nutrition. Emphasis is on strengthening the capability of institutions and individuals in developing countries to generate and utilize such knowledge and information. To achieve this goal, CFNPP undertakes research on the effects of government policies on the microeconomy, and its subsequent effects on the poor. In addition, research focuses on the functioning of market and the behavior of various agents, including enterprises, households and individuals, in order to understand how policy change affects welfare and living standards.
In the fall of 2001, CFNPP faculty as principal investigators, together with other Cornell faculty, initiated SAGA (Strategies and Analyses for Growth and Access), a six-year, $8 million, USAID-sponsored project for research and technical assistance in Africa, in collaboration with Clark-Atlanta University. The research focuses on four major structural constraints that hold back the African poor: (1) education, (2) health and nutrition, (3) risk, vulnerability and poverty dynamics, and (4) empowerment and institutions. The technical assistance component of SAGA includes grant proposal preparation and review, training courses or workshops on specific topics or methods, and communication and outreach strategies that maximize the probability that research will have an impact on policy. The SAGA project also provides grant support for U.S-based Ph.D. students and faculty in economics, agricultural economics, and other closely related fields to be carried out in selected African countries.
CFNPP also has a large collaborative project with the African Economic Research Consortium to provide training and engage in collaborative research on poverty, labor markets and human resource development with African scholars.
In Madagascar, CFNPP is involved in a three-year USAID-sponsored project, "Improved Economic Analysis for Decision-Making." CFNPP researchers have partnered with local institutions to conduct collaborative analysis on issues important for economic policy and poverty reduction, and to disseminate these analyses and facilitate public dialogue, policy debates, and decision-making. More information is available at the Ilo Project website
Other recent research activities have focused upon:
- socio-economic determinants of children’s health in Russia
- characteristics and determinants of rural poverty in Bulgaria
- assessment of the relationship of women’s employment to child health and education in developing countries
- the determinants of infant mortality rates in a cross section of countries using a "growth regression" approach
- the linkages existing between the demand for various health care providers and the consumption of food, nonfood goods, and leisure in Vietnam
- analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) to examine the progress of 24 African countries in achieving six of the seven Millennium Development Goals (MDG) toward reducing poverty set forth by the United Nations
- global inequality in health status, decomposing it into within- and between-country inequality
- the differences in the impact of mother’s and father’s education on the nutrition of boys and girls in African countries
- child allowances on intra-household allocation of consumption in Romania
- benefit incidence and impact of projects financed by the Nicaragua Emergency Social Investment Fund (FISE)
- the pattern of health care demand in rural Tanzania
- the incidence of public social sector expenditures in Peru using the traditional methods of benefit incidence analysis and several extensions of those methods
- social risk management options for medical care in Indonesia
CFNPP-sponsored graduate training includes courses on analysis of global hunger and malnutrition, analysis of household survey data, and economic policy development; advice on theses research; and graduate student assistantships. In addition, CFNPP publishes books, journal articles and book chapters, and working papers that are disseminated widely throughout the world. Additionally, CFNPP staff are regularly engaged in organizing, and participating in, training seminars and workshops to further disseminate research results and to help ensure their integration into policy decision-making processes.
The majority of CFNPP’s activities are funded by external donors.
Publications
CFNPP researchers have published manuscripts on a variety of issues relating to economic development. A list of these publications and ordering information may be reached through the CFNPP website
Contact
David E. Sahn, Director
Division of Nutritional Sciences
College of Human Ecology
3M12 Van Rensselaer Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853Phone: (607) 255-8931
Fax: (607) 255-0178
E-mail: David.Sahn@cornell.edu
Website: http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/des16