Policy Recommendations

A-12: South Asian Coalition for Improved Nutrition (SACIN): Transforming Food Systems through Fiscal and Trade Policies Reforms
  • Make nutrition a core objective of fiscal frameworks by earmarking at least 1% of public expenditure for nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive programmes, with multi-year budget lines and performance triggers (e.g., disbursing against reductions in anaemia or under-5 stunting).
  • Use excise taxes to reshape demand away from ultra-processed and high-sugar products and ring-fence a share of the revenue for healthy school meals and fortification quality control. Pakistan’s 2023 federal circular raised excise on aerated drinks to 20% and added a 10% duty on juices/energy drinks which is proof that fiscal levers can be updated quickly; Pakistan should now escalate rates and close loopholes. Sri Lanka’s gram-based sweetened beverage tax demonstrates a practical, tiered design that discourages higher sugar content. Maldives shows a complementary approach using specific (per-litre) duties on drinks in plastic packaging that can be calibrated for nutrition targets while cutting plastic waste.
  • Link tariff policy with nutrition: temporarily lower or waive import duties on nutrient-dense staples when domestic shocks threaten affordability, paired with sunset clauses to protect farmers. Bangladesh reduced or waived rice import duties in late-2024/early-2025 after floods to stabilise prices; that playbook should be formalised with pre-agreed triggers.
  • Embed health in trade policy impact assessments and require that all major tariff/quota decisions include quantified effects on the cost of a healthy diet (CoHD) and on micronutrient intake, not just CPI. Regional bodies should publish a quarterly CoHD dashboard to guide SAFTA/SAARC negotiations.
  • Mandate and enforce fortification where market failures persist. Bangladesh’s mandatory vitamin-A fortification of edible oil (since 2013) is a working regional example; enforcement and quality audits should be scaled with ring-fenced financing. Nepal’s 2024 law limiting industrial trans-fat is another low-cost, high-impact regulatory fix; other SACIN countries should adopt best-practice (≤2% iTFA) limits.
  • Protect and expand nutrition in safety nets using trade-smart sourcing. Nepal’s fortified-rice roll-out in school meals shows how procurement and fortification can move in tandem; scale this region-wide and finance premix through excise/tariff revenues.
  • Modernise SPS/food-safety regimes to lower healthy-food trade frictions while blocking unsafe imports. Bangladesh has updated food-fortification and safety regulations via BFSA; SACIN should support a regional mutual-recognition pathway for fortified staples that meet Codex/WHO specs, and create a joint residue-testing network to reduce duplicative costs.
  • Replace blunt, growth-harming input bans with targeted, time-bound incentives that preserve yields and diet diversity. Sri Lanka’s 2021 fertilizer import ban reduced output and worsened food security; SACIN members should codify “do-no-harm” checks (yields, diet cost) before ag-input restrictions and prefer precision subsidies/eco-schemes instead.
  • Localise healthy supply: offer temporary tariff credits and concessional finance for domestic production of pulses, oilseeds, horticulture, and premix. Tie these to climate-smart practices and guaranteed offtake from school/public procurement. Pair with place-based grants for cold chains and farmer aggregation.
  • Hard-wire nutrition into GST/VAT structures by maintaining high rates on sugary drinks/ultra-processed foods and lower rates (or zero-rating) for minimally processed staples and fresh produce. 
  • Create national multi-sector coordination units with statutory authority to link agriculture, health, trade, and finance on nutrition, plus a unified monitoring framework with gender and climate indicators; publish annual “nutrition-in-trade” scorecards and use results-based grants to reward provinces that reduce the CoHD.
  • Mobilise domestic resources by dedicating at least 20% of health-harm-product excise proceeds to: (i) fortification monitoring, (ii) healthy-school-meal scale-up, (iii) farmer training in high-yield legumes/horticulture, and (iv) consumer awareness on healthy diets.
  • Use regional trade to lower the cost of a healthy diet: fast-track SAFTA tariff line-by-tariff line reductions for pulses, edible oils, premix, fortified rice kernels, and cold-chain equipment; standardise fortification specs and accept regional certificates to speed up intra-SAARC flows.
  • Require ministries of finance, commerce, and agriculture to publish annual nutrition budget tagging, nutrition-health tax incidence, and trade-policy health impact statements.
  • Design all reforms with distributional safeguards targeted food vouchers in lean seasons, nutrition top-ups for women and adolescent girls, and farmer compensation when tariff changes lower farmgate prices so that trade and fiscal tools deliver equitable nutrition gains, not unintended harm.