Policy Integration of Food, Nutrition, and Environment in Governance Perspective
Keywords:
Integration policy, Nutrition, Environment, Resilience food, Development sustainableAbstract
Policy integration across food, nutrition, and environmental sectors is increasingly recognized as a critical requirement for achieving sustainable development, given the complex interconnections among food resilience, malnutrition, and environmental degradation. Fragmented, sectoral policy approaches have proven insufficient to address these multidimensional challenges. This study aims to examine how the integration of food, nutrition, and environmental policies is reflected in empirical food system indicators and to assess its implications for development governance. The study employs a qualitative research design using qualitative content analysis based on big data. Secondary data are sourced from Our World in Data, focusing on three key indicators: agricultural land use as an environmental dimension, prevalence of undernourishment as an indicator of food and nutrition resilience, and child stunting prevalence as a measure of long-term nutritional outcomes. The analysis is conducted descriptively and interpretively to identify trends and interrelationships among indicators within a policy integration framework. The findings indicate that stability in agricultural land use does not automatically lead to improved nutritional outcomes. Although reductions in undernourishment and stunting occur in certain periods, these improvements are often uneven and vulnerable to external shocks. This suggests that food and nutrition policies that lack strong integration with environmental management and social protection mechanisms have limited capacity to generate sustainable impacts. Nutritional improvements appear to be more closely linked to effective cross-sectoral interventions than to food production policies alone. This study highlights the importance of cross-sectoral policy integration as a governance prerequisite for achieving food resilience and sustainable nutrition outcomes, while acknowledging limitations related to the use of aggregate data and the absence of causal analysis.
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