Improving food security and nutrition indicators in Kenya through market incentives: a macro-microsimulation approach

ESTEFANIA CUSTODIO; ALFREDO MAINAR CAUSAPÉ; SOFÍA JIMENEZ-CALVO; PIERRE BOULANGER; MARIA PRISCILA RAMOS; EMANUELE FERRARI; HASAN DUDU

Congreso; ECON 2019 Congreso Internacional de Economía y Gestión; 2019

Kenya, such as other African countries, is particularly concerned about the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (No more hunger), and its associated consequences for the society. Empirical evidence about food security and nutrition in Kenya accounts for deficiencies in food access, food sufficiency and food quality at the household level. These deficiencies are among others the causes of all forms of malnutrition (stunting, wasting and underweight), which can lead to brain underdevelopment, low immunity to diseases, low educational performance and even mortality cases of children in this country (The Kenya National Micronutrient Survey - KNMS, 2011).To solve the food security and nutrition problems in Kenya is a challenging issue because of the different dimensions to be tackled (economic, environmental, educational, health and sanitation) and also because of the heterogeneity that characterizes households (income and food expenditure, education level of households head, regional sanitation coverage, access to potable water / waste water system, etc.). The main purpose of our research is to evaluate the impact of a fertiliser policy reform in Kenya on food access (change in food expenditure), quantity of food consumption (change in dietary energy consumption) and quality of food consumption (change in the proportion of macronutrients consumed ?fats, proteins and carbohydrates). We address this challenge developing a macro-micro simulation model for Kenya, based on the Stage-Dev CGE model calibrated with the SAM Kenya 2014 and microsimulations using the KIHBS 2015/2016 and the Food Composition Tables (1993 and 2018). The results are discussed in terms of initial economic (per capita income), food security (Household Diet Diversity Score ? HDDS, Dietary Energy Consumption - DEC) and nutritional (stunting, wasting and overweight in children under 5 years old) status at the household level. National results are also disaggregated between metropolitan areas (Nairobi and Mombasa) and the rest of urban and rural zones of the country. Main results suggest that better infrastructure conditions that reduce transport costs and improve market access allow increasing the purchasing power on average, and particularly with a pro-poor result and benefiting the most those households with lower diet diversity and with higher stunting. This scenario also leads to the greatest increases in terms of diet energy consumption per capita (food sufficiency) with similar distributive results as for the food consumption effect. However, improving productivity in agricultural practices (Extension scenario) leads to the largest increase in energy consumption, particularly from fats in the diet, for households with low diet diversity. Protein and carbohydrate consumption increase the most under the Market Access scenario on average nationally. Rural zones, (more specifically the Semi-Arid North region) display the greatest increase in all macronutrient consumption, while households located in the metropolitan area (particularly, Nairobi) are the least impacted in terms of food quality change.Even when results are preliminary yet, they allowed extracting some suggestions concerning the fertiliser reform in Kenya on food security and nutrition improvements at the household level with a policy-oriented perspective.