Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Stefano Marta
Author-X-Name-First: Stefano
Author-X-Name-Last: Marta
Author-Email: stefano.marta@unicatt.it
Author-Workplace-Name: DISCE, Università Cattolica
Title: Innovative Regional Development Theories and Policies for Food and Nutrition Security
Abstract: The pressing nature of the issue of hunger and food insecurity, the first United Nations Millennium Development Goal, 
the fact that this MDG is far to be achieved by 2015 and the growing consensus around the inadequacy and ineffectiveness of the 
traditional approaches to tackle it, suggest that new approaches to food and nutrition security (FNS) policies and strategies 
should be explored, developed and implemented. In particular, the inadequacy of past policies suggests that there is a need 
to shift from one-size-fits-all, entirely top-down and sectoral-based approaches to integrated, context-specific and place-based 
approaches which would allow to capture and include the complexity of development, the importance of territorial endogenous 
development potential, the key role of both national and sub-national actors and stakeholders through the principle of multi-level 
governance in the policy-making process. The place-based approach to development policies, which the OECD defines as the new 
regional development paradigm, is built and developed on the basis of these key principles and concepts. This paper tries to 
explore and analyze the extent to which a place-based approach, which so far has been applied and implemented mainly in developed 
countries and in few cases in developing countries (eg. Cambodia) to address more generally the issue of development, could represent 
an effective and beneficial policy approach to tackle the issue of food insecurity. This research question is addressed both through 
a comprehensive literature review on food and nutrition security and on the innovative regional development approaches and paradigms, 
and by interviewing some of the main experts in terms of food security, place-based/territorial approach and its critique, namely 
the spatially-blind approach. The result of the research is a conceptual and policy framework for the place-based approach to food 
and nutrition security, which highlights the rationale, potential effectiveness and key concepts characterizing this innovative 
approach and tries to identify its potential limitations and ways to strengthen it. It is finally suggested that this territorial 
dimension should be more reflected in food and nutrition security policies and strategies. 
Length: 29 pages
Creation-Date: 2013-05
Publication-Status: Published in Review of Economics, May 2013, pages nn1-nn2
File-URL: http://www.unicatt.it/dipartimenti/DISES/allegati/dises1392.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
File-Function: First version, 2013
Number: dises1392
Classification-JEL: R10; R11; R58
Keywords: Food and Nutrition Security; Place-Based Approach; Regional Development Policies
Handle: RePEc:ctc:serie2:dises1392