6
Figure 1 outlines the conceptual framework that
this report uses for analyzing the linkages among
food availability, access, consumption, and nu-
trition, as well as important direct intervening
variables, that are discussed in these pages.
Income plays a key role in this framework.
Securing adequate access to food depends
largely on having adequate income (subsistence
or market) or other entitlements (e.g., food trans-
fers). Income growth also permits (but does not
guarantee) greater provision of, and access to,
other requirements for nutritional well-being,
such as safe water, environmental sanitation,
and health care.
*
Since African economies depend heavily
on agriculture, food production may be a key
sector for generating income growth. Increased
agricultural productivity (e.g., via technologi-
cal change) can potentially increase food access
for low-income households in two ways--by
increasing incomes (e.g., crop sales, labor wages,
consumption of subsistence production) and/or
by lowering real food prices. Together, incomes,
2. Conceptual Framework
food availability, and prices are important de-
terminants of food access, which, in turn, is a
potentially important means for improving con-
sumption and nutritional well-being.
However, the importance of a number of
intervening variables which may weaken the
links among these path variables are also recog-
nized. The extent to which national or local
food availability translates into adequate access
for households, for instance, depends, in the
short run, on their incomes and other entitle-
ments, and in the long run, on their physical and
human assets. The degree to which changes in
household access, in turn, are translated into
changes in consumption levels for individual
family members depends on the household's
income elasticity of nutrient demand and the
distribution of resources among household
members. Finally, the degree to which changes
in consumption levels translate into changes in
nutritional status may be affected by factors
such as child care, sanitation, access to health
care, and access to safe water.
*
Since Figure 1 is meant only to show the direct
effects at each stage along the linkages pathway,
this income-nutrition linkage via health status is not
indicated.