22 Study devoted chapters to both nutrition and food subsidies, and concluded that the food subsidy program is not targeted to groups at high nutrition risk, and policy reforns will at best protect the income of some beneficiaries of current policies but wiU not do anything about structural nutrition problems. The Social Safety Net project is expected to flow from this analysis.

_55._ A Bank Discussion paper on nutrition published during the year, 'Improving Nutrition in India," identifies that, despite substantial progress towards evolution of a nutrition policy in India, the distribution of nutrition expenditures has been insensitive to the observed regional variations in malnutrition. Adoption of a regional approach to nutrition planning is called for, as well as efforts to strengthen the nutrition data bases to encourage the design of interventions - appropriately molded to accommodate regional variations. The report *Fighting Malnutrition An Evaluation of Brazilian Food and Nutrition Programs' reviews Brazil's long and varied experience with emergency nutrition programs, and suggests that many of the constraints to effective nutrition interventions are operational rather than conceptuaL A Bank lbchnical Paper also published during the year, "Helping Women Improve Nutrition in the Developing World: Beating the Zero Sum Game, draws attention to the linkages and competition among women's life roles, and suggests that women's time constraints may partially explain poor participation rates in many developmcnt projects. The report offers suggestions for using an analysis of women's roles to address nutrition problems in developing countries. Another technical paper 'A Case for Promoting Breastfeeding in Projects to Limit Fertility' points out that actions to promote breastfeeding have generally not been a significant part of Bank population projects even though more women are protected from pregnancy in many countries through breastfeeding than through all family planning contraceptive methods combined.

56. A major bottleneck in Bank nutrition work in earlier years has been a shortage of staff knowledgeable in the field. FY90 saw a change on this front. Africa has hired two new nutrition experts (and is recruiting a third), LAC two, and Asia one. Three of she four Technical Departments now have full-time nutrition experts and one, ASTPN, has recruited a second. In addition, PHRHN conducted a three-day workshop on *Nutrition for Nonnutritionists'; more than twice as many Bank staff applied than could be accommodated. PHR repeated the course in early July 1990 and a special course for agriculture staff is scheduled for April 1991. Increasingly, the Bank is taking advantage of other donor, particularly UNICEF, presence and knowledge in nutrition to compensate for limited staff capacity. For example, the lhnzania Health and Nutrition Project expands a program that UNICEF and WHO successfully mounted with Italian government resources in 1984. Similarly, the Colombia Community Child Care and Nutrition Project is based on a model developed and tested by UNICEF and other non-governmental organizations. Also, Bank missions are receiving more help from UNICEF in the preparation of projects. An identification mission for a nutrition project in Bangladesh and preparation of the Argentina Social Emergency and Adjustment project have been carried out in collaboration with UNICEF.

57. The momentum in nutrition activities which began following Reorganization has continued, and in some ways accelerated, during FY90. Lending has increased and the pipeline for future nutrition operations is strong. Nutrition's linkages with sector operations outside of PHN including agriculture, education, women and development, and others, as well as with adjustment activities, have grown stronger during the year. Staff capacity has been strengthened through nutrition training courses and the recruitment and hiring of additional technical nutrition staff in three of the four Bank regions.

_58._ Nevertheless, most departments still do not have staff experienced in nutrition operations. The Bank continues to need to develop more institutional capacity to respond to managemcnt's