Abstract:
Food security objectives of UN Millennium Development Goals have been constrained by the lack of policy coordination
in the spheres of food, nutrition and public health. This paper investigates the relative importance of coordination of
nutrition legislation on malnutrition indicators. Using a regression analysis, the variation of incidence of stunting and
under-five malnutrition for the year 2013 is explained using policy variables. Results reveal that low levels of
implementation of ‘wheat fortification’ legislation and low level of constitutional support for food security result in
statistically significant increments in malnutrition. Significant reductions in malnutrition are observable for highly
coordinated implementation of both of these legislative articles. We control for anthropometric variables, income level and
regional fixed effects in order to remove potential biases.
