Hunger and malnutrition are the plight of millions of people, especially in developing countries. This study argues that the lack of a comprehensive measure for nutrition and food security has impeded progress towards eradicating hunger and undernutrition. The author seeks to fill this gap by designing an international Nutrition Index (NI). Using this NI, the study ranks 106 countries and analyses patterns and trends in their nutrition situation. The correlations between the NI and other international indicators show its ability to reflect micronutrient deficiencies as well as its sensitivity to poverty and inequality. Multivariate regressions reveal that the NI tends to improve with economic development and the amelioration of health services, whereas warfare has detrimental effects.

The author presents a promising tool to increase the coverage rate of community-based health insurance schemes (CBHI) and access to medical care for poor population groups in developing countries. He addresses a key problem of CBHI: Authorities cannot sanction non-members and membership cannot be enforced. Therefore, it is proposed to award membership by offering incentives such as raffle participation for joining a CBHI. This approach attracts new members and can be a motivation to continue membership payments of healthy insurance members. The results of an ex-ante demand analysis conducted in the Philippines are promising. More than 80% of the respondents would like to participate in the raffle and would even agree to higher premium payments covering additional costs of the raffle.

Evaluation pro-poor growth enhancing investments in infrastructure and rural development requires comprehensive appraisal tools. Traditional methods have taken a project or sector perspective that did not capture economy-wide effects. However, in addition to inter-sectoral effects, large-scale investments can also have long-term impacts on national capital formation, the government budget and the foreign trade balance. This study builds a computable general equilibrium model and links it to a micro-accounting module for poverty analysis in Vietnam. The spatial dimension is captured by incorporating two regions into the model: the lagging mountainous province of Son La is compared to the rest of Vietnam. This model is applied to several infrastructure investments and identifies economic growth rates that would be needed to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal.