Food justice intervention database

Social and economic equity

The theme of social and economic equity in tackling food insecurity aims to address the unequal distribution of resources, opportunities, and outcomes related to food access and nutrition. It emphasises the importance of promoting fairness, inclusivity, and justice in food systems to ensure that individuals and communities have the opportunity and capability to meet their food needs and improve their overall wellbeing.

Interventions that involved an equity dimension included education and nutritional literacy interventions, health service provision, welfare interventions, housing, employment, social capital and community network interventions. Most interventions in this theme (159 of 180) were educational, health or welfare oriented. The effectiveness of these interventions varies depending on the type of intervention, the target population, and the specific context in which they are applied.

Facilitators and barriers to successful interventions

The effectiveness of interventions to ensure social and economic equity is influenced by various facilitators and barriers, which can either support or hinder the implementation and impact of these interventions.

Facilitators

  • Active community engagement and power over decision-making
  • Inclusive spaces for dialogue, participation and coordinated action
  • Established principle of the human right to food
  • Collaboration with stakeholders (with attention to conflicts of interest)
  • Enabling and supportive policy
  • Adequate capacity and resources (human, economic, organisational)
  • Updated, well-communicated data on food security status of marginalised groups

Barriers

  • Food environments swamped with cheap, unhealthy (junk) food, making it difficult to support healthy diets
  • Corporate capture of food systems and policy makes it harder to prioritise health and equity over profit
  • Limited and/or unsustainable funding for new initiatives
  • Lack of infrastructure for implementation
  • Entrenched systemic inequities (including socio-economic, racial, gender) and social and cultural norms that resist change
  • Policy inertia by governments, lack of transparency and accountability regarding commitments, policy and programmes

Systematic review

  • Based on the available literature and systematic reviews, interventions related to social and economic equity have demonstrated positive impacts on food security outcomes by improving food access, dietary intake, food literacy, and health outcomes among target populations.
  • Food and monetary assistance are associated with improved food security. Reviews have found food insecurity reduced through food supplementation, in person group prenatal care, and unconditional or conditional cash transfers.
  • School based food assistance found to be associated with reduced child food insecurity among high-risk populations.
  • Improvement in food security (including diet diversity) is positively associated with most domains of women’s empowerment, except for credit.
  • There are fewer studies (and limited evidence) of associations between interventions and health outcomes or health care utilisation.

Download the food justice intervention - social and economic equity database

Education and nutritional literacy

Interventions to improve educational and nutritional literacy can be designed to support agricultural extension and community gardening initiatives, provide training in income-generating activities, small business development, local entrepreneurship, community kitchen and cooking training, face-to-face and group-based nutrition and health education, nutrition, and financial literacy classes. Many of the interventions captured in the food justice database were implemented in high income countries, especially USA.

Housing

Housing is a basic need and foundational for social justice and food security. Housing interventions include short and long-term rent subsidies and transitional housing in supervised programmes (sometimes linked with psychosocial services).

Health service provision

Channelling food and nutrition through health services that are accessible to marginalised groups furthers social justice. Such interventions include food and nutritional support to people living with HIV, food and nutrition services integrated with community health worker outreach. In the food justice intervention database, most of the included studies were from high income settings, especially USA.

Welfare

Welfare programmes, implemented by the government at either a national or local level can take the form of food and (conditional or unconditional) cash transfers, food vouchers, food baskets, food banks and other food-based safety nets, various grants and benefits targeting children (including orphans), seniors (‘meals on wheels’) and other vulnerable groups. The Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Programme (SNAP) in the USA has extensive documentation.

Employment and wage

Employment initiatives further food justice goals by providing a livelihood and income to access food and other basic needs. Interventions includes job opportunities (for example, in community kitchens), minimum wage policies, employment guarantee schemes, inclusive business models (IBMs) to boost smallholders’ livelihoods by providing support to tackle local production constraints and limited access to (formal) markets.

Social capital and community networks

These interventions encompass one or more of the three types of social capital: bonding (trust and cooperation), bridging (access to social resources for groups) and linking social capital (relationships of respect and trust across levels of power or authority, such as local and national government). Cooperatives are one example. They can help raise awareness of livelihood diversification strategies and help members gain access to markets (such as coffee producers), government subsidies, donor funds, technical support, research and development microfinance and local group-based credit initiatives.

Page last updated: 18 September 2023

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