Food aid can reduce constraints by offering a resource that makes clinic attendance more possible. Food aid offers three benefits in such cases. Hungry mothers pass on their hunger to their children. Meeting the immediate food needs of such women, particularly before and after child-birth, is a precondition for the success of all other investments in development. Second, targeted food aid represents an income, a security that permits women the time to pursue important activities other than finding food, including child-care.
Good nutrition requires investments in time, and such investments are generally made by women.
Food aid can help reduce the time needed by women to address the daily problem of putting food on the table. By freeing them of one of their most immediate concerns, food aid lets hungry people take advantage of other opportunities available for improving their lives. Third, food rations often reach women better than other kinds of development resources. Food aid provided as wages or as incentives can reach women in food insecure households which are often 'crowded out' of projects offering technical assistance or cash. Likewise, food rations offered as wages or incentives for project participation tend to attract the most needy members of a community.