Academic interests
- Nutrition, specialising in Public Nutrition (including Public Health Nutrition) in its national and international dimensions.
- Relationship with international human rights with focus on economic, social and cultural rights (the right to adequate food, the right to health, etc.).
- The need to develop human resources/capacity building in these interdisciplinary areas.
- The need to promote methodological research in the interface between public health nutrition and human rights norms/principles and practice
Courses taught
- ERN3200 - Preventive and clinical nutrition
Background
Higher education
- Postgraduate Academic Diploma in Nutrition, University of London, 1965-66
- Cand. real. Zoology (Zoo-physiology), 1962
Employment
- Associate Professor, University of Oslo, Department of Nutrition (until 1997 under Nordic School of Nutrition at UiO), ending January 2005; temporarily employed January-February 2011; currently in active emerita status
- Technical Adviser in Nutrition, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome, from September 1989 - March 1994 (on leave from UiO).Consultant, Norwegian Research Council (at the time Council for Research on Societal Planning, RFSP) 2 months in 1981 to draft a programme for Research in economic, social and cultural rights, as developed by an expert committee.
- Consultant to the UN System (UN Protein-Calorie Advisory Group, PAG) to lead an African-Norwegian interdiscpålinary team to prepare a first ever report of the UN on ”Women in Food Production, Food Handling and Nutrition”, on leave from UiO 18 months, 1975-1976.
- University Fellow, Institute for Nutrition Research, 1963-1966
Awards
- The Internationalisation Prize of the Oslo Student Parliament, 2005
- Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, 2015 for contributions to the development of the Right to Adequate Food as a human right
Positions held
- Member Board of Trustees, International Foundation for Science (IFS), 2008 - 2016
- Member BOT of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington D.C., 1996-2003
- Member BOT of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), 1995-1998
- Member of Norad's Research Committee, and
- Member of Central Committee for Norwegian Research (Hovedkomiteen for Norsk Forskning), both for several years from around 1980
- Leader, Centre for International Development Studies (SIU), University of Oslo, 1981-1988
Collaboration
- Central in the early developments of several North-South cooperative programmes between UiO and academic institutions in the third world: Generally in the case of Zimbabwe; Mali; specifically for nutrition in South Africa re. student mobility (UKZN, UCT, SU) and master supervision (UCT and SU).Collaboration with Community Law Centre, University of the Western Cape (UCWC) on promoting the right to food at Nutrition departments in South African universities.
- Academic Coordinator in NOMA funded master programme on “Nutrition, Human Rights and Governance” with Stellenbosch University in Cape Town and Makerere University in Uganda 2010-2014.
Tags:
Nutrition,
Mother and child,
Nutrition Policy,
Governance,
Human Rights,
Right to adequate food/Right to Health
Publications
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Atukunda, Prudence; Eide, Wenche Barth; Kardel, Kristin Reimers; Iversen, Per Ole & Westerberg, Ane Cecilie
(2021).
Unlocking the potential for achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 – “Zero Hunger” - in Africa: Targets, strategies, synergies and challenges.
Food & Nutrition Research (FNR).
ISSN 1654-6628.
65.
doi:
10.29219/fnr.v65.7686.
Full text in Research Archive
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Eide, Asbjørn & Eide, Wenche Barth
(2020).
Chapter 9: Can the United Nations system be mobilized to promote human rights-based approaches in preventing and ending childhood obesity?
In Garde, Amandine; Curtis, Joshua & De Schutter, Olivier (Ed.),
Ending Childhood Obesity. A Challenge at the Crossroads of International Economic and Human Rights Law..
Edward Elgar Publishing.
ISSN 9781788114011.
p. 219–250.
doi:
10.4337/9781788114028.00016.
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Marais, M.L.; McLachlan, M.H. & Eide, Wenche Barth
(2016).
The NOMA track module on nutrition, human rights and governance: Part 2. A transnational curriculum using a human rights-based approach to foster key competencies in nutrition professionals.
African Journal of Health Professions Education.
ISSN 2078-5127.
8(2),
p. 160 –165.
doi:
10.7196/AJHPE.2016.v8i2.554.
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Marais, M.L.; McLachlan, M.H. & Eide, Wenche Barth
(2016).
The NOMA track module on nutrition, human rights and governance: Part 1. Perceptions held by Master’s students.
African Journal of Health Professions Education.
ISSN 2078-5127.
8(2),
p. 152–159.
Show summary
Background. In response to the challenge of the global health needs of the 21st century, four academic institutions in Norway, South Africa and Uganda, each offering a Master’s degree in nutrition, collaboratively developed the NOrwegian MAsters (NOMA) track module on nutrition, human rights and governance, integrating a human rights-based approach into graduate education in nutrition.
Objective. To capture students’ perceptions about the NOMA track module, focusing on the development of key competencies.
Methods. Employing a qualitative approach, 20 (91% response rate) in-depth telephonic interviews were conducted with participating students, voice
recorded and transcribed. Through an inductive process, emerging themes were used to compile a code list for content analysis of the transcribed text.
Relevant themes were reported according to the professionals’ roles described by the CanMEDS competency framework.
Results. Participation in the module enhanced key competencies in the students, e.g. communication skills and the adoption of a holistic approach to interaction with people or communities. Their role as collaborator was enhanced by their learning to embrace diversity and cultural differences and similarities. Students had to adapt to different cultures and educational systems. They were inspired to contribute in diverse contexts and act as agents for change in the organisations in which they may work or act as leaders or co-ordinators during interaction with community groups and policy makers. Higher education institutions offering transnational modules should support lecturers to manage the inherent diversity in the classroom as a way of enhancing student performance.
Conclusion. The development of future transprofessional modules will benefit from the inclusion of desirable key competencies as part of the module
outcomes by following a competency by design process.
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Rendal Torgersen, Karianne; Eide, Wenche Barth; Marais, Maritha & Iversen, Per Ole
(2014).
THE ROLE OF GRANDMOTHERS AS THE PRIMARY CAREGIVERS IN POOR HOUSEHOLDS AND THEIR OWN RIGHT TO ADEQUATE FOOD: EXAMINING TWO COMMUNITIES IN THE BREEDE VALLEY, WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA.
East African Journal of Peace and Human Rights.
ISSN 1021-8858.
20,
p. 414–436.
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Karlsen, Elisabeth; Aurdal, Kristine Stray; Terragni, Laura; Eide, Wenche Barth & Iversen, Per Ole
(2013).
A Human Rights-Based Approach to Challenges and Opportunities in the Process of Fulfilling Nursing Home Residents’ Right to Adequate Food.
Nordic Journal of Human Rights.
ISSN 1891-8131.
p. 402–427.
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Stupar, Dijana; Eide, Wenche Barth; Bourne, Lesley; Hendricks, Michael; Iversen, Per Ole & Wandel, Margareta
(2012).
The nutrition transition and the human right to adequate food for adolescents in the Cape Town metropolitan area: Implications for nutrition policy.
Food Policy.
ISSN 0306-9192.
37(3),
p. 199–206.
doi:
10.1016/j.foodpol.2012.02.007.
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Andresen, Ellen Cecilie; Wandel, Margareta; Eide, Wenche Barth; Herselman, M & Iversen, Per Ole
(2009).
Delivery of the Nutrition Supplementation Programme in the Cape Town metropolitan area from the perspective of mothers of under-fives: A qualitative study.
South African Journal of Child Health.
ISSN 1994-3032.
3(3),
p. 90–95.
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Eide, Wenche Barth; Oshaug, Arne & Sidibe, Ousmane
(2003).
Mobilising states and other actors for a rights-based approach to food and nutritional health,
Moderne aspects of nutrition : present knowledge and future perspectives.
Krager.
p. 141–142.
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Oshaug, Arne & Eide, Wenche Barth
(2003).
The long process of giving content to an economic, social and cultural right : twenty-five years with the case of the right to adequate food,
Human rights and criminal justice for the downtrodden.
Marinus Nijhoff Publishers.
p. 325–369.
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2002).
Nutrition and Human Rights,
Nutrition: A Foundation for Development.
UN ACC/Sub-Committee on Nutrition.
Show summary
A Foundation For Development is a compilation of briefs on of the latest research findings in nutrition as they relate to other development sectors. The briefs are designed to facilitate dialogue between nutrition and other development professionals. They are organized both as a complete set or as stand-alone briefs that make the case for integrating nutrition into the work of the development community. Brief 10 on Nutrition and Human Rights discusses how the new human rights paradigm fits well with the focus on the human being in the nutrition community and how nutrition can help strengthen the advancement of the right to adequate food as well as other eonomic, social and cultural rights.
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2002).
Nutrition and Human Rights,
Nutrition: A Foundation for Development.
UN ACC/Sub-Committee on Nutrition.
Show summary
A Foundation For Development is a compilation of briefs on of the latest research findings in nutrition as they relate to other development sectors. The briefs are designed to facilitate dialogue between nutrition and other development professionals. They are organized both as a complete set or as stand-alone briefs that make the case for integrating nutrition into the work of the development community. Brief 10 on Nutrition and Human Rights discusses how the new human rights paradigm fits well with the focus on the human being in the nutrition community and how nutrition can help strengthen the advancement of the right to adequate food as well as other eonomic, social and cultural rights.
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Eide, Wenche Barth; Damman, Siri; Silkoset, Unni; Helsing, Elisabet & Oshaug, Arne
(2002).
Training for contemporary understanding of the human nutrition condition : globalisation, human rights and governance as dimensions of the study and practice of public nutrition in the 21st centruy - experiences from recent educational innovations at the University of Oslo.
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2(1),
p. 46–55.
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2001).
Breaking Conceptual and Methodological Ground: Promoting the Human Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition. An example of activism with an academic base.
Ecology of Food and Nutrition.
ISSN 0367-0244.
40(6),
p. 571–595.
Show summary
The paper provides highlights of the evolving international "nutrition activism" conducted over two decades that recognises access to adequate food, health and care as human rights embedded in international human rights law. The basic proposition is that truly rights-based approaches offer new opportunities for strengthening monitoring, advocacy and accountability in promoting food and nutrition activism, alike. Nutrition scholars may contribute to empirical and policy research on indicators and evidence of fulfilment or non-fulfilment of obligations by states and other actors, in protecting and promoting these rights as preconditions for freedom from hunger and nutritional wellbeing. Also, scholars' allotment of time to certain activities that may be perceived by peers as lying outside legitimised academic activities including networking, lobbying and advocacy, may prove critical in driving some of the very processes on which empirical and policy research would in turn be based.
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Eide, Wenche Barth & Oshaug, Arne
(1999).
The nature and levels of state involvement in governance towards food security. A conceptual, normative approach with practical implications.
In Ogunrinade, Ade & May, Julian (Ed.),
Not By Bread Alone: Food Security and Governance in Africa.
University of Witvatersrand Press, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Show summary
The chapter is a conceptual contribution to the discussion on
governance for food security, taking into consideration the broad
understanding of governance as extending into a partnership between the
state and other actors, notably within the civil society of non-state
actors, as well as actors from the private (commercial) sector. It
discusses the dynamics of this partnership and the critical need for
human resource building to adress and maintain the appropriate balance
between its actors in the strive for food security. The paper suggests
that good theoretical frameworks, based on a comprehensive set of
principles and values in the public interest, can aid in establishing
meaningful interdisciplinary and intersectoral dialogue, where theory
should be linked with first hand experience and praxis towards
visionary, but at the same time practical tools for governance for food
security.
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Eide, Wenche Barth & Kracht, Uwe
(1999).
The International Code on the Human Right to Adequate Food: stepping stone on the road to rights-based development.
Institut International Jacques Maritain, Notes ET Documents, XXIVième année.
Show summary
The paper analyses the role played by the International Code of Conduct on the Human Right to Adequate Food, produced by international NGOs within less than a year after the World Food Summit in 1996. The Code is a major response from the NGO community to the Summit's call for giving operational meaning to the right to food and the possibility for working out 'voluntary guidelines' for its implementation. The paper reviews and analyses the impact made by the Code on the UN machinery concerned with human rights, food, nutrition and development. While yet to be adopted, as a "working tool" it has facilitated broadly-based agreement on the contents of the right to food both in and out of the UN and is assumed to assist the identification of responsibilities by various actors - states, private sector, civil society, and international development organisations - towards the realisation of the right to food for all. The paper also discusses the Code of Conduct on the right to food in relation to other codes established by humanitarian organisations, and points to the growing need for greater convergence of human rights and humanitarian law in response to the conflicts of our times.
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Eide, Wenche Barth; Alfredsson, Gudmundur & Oshaug, Arne
(1996).
Human resource building for the promotion of nutrition rights.
Food Policy.
ISSN 0306-9192.
21,
p. 139–152.
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Oshaug, Arne; Eide, Wenche Barth & Eide, Asbjørn
(1994).
Human rights: a normative basis for food and nutrition policies.
Food Policy.
ISSN 0306-9192.
19,
p. 491–516.
View all works in Cristin
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2015).
Chapter 4.
Strengthening food security through human rights: A moral and legal imperative and practical opportunity.
.
Routledge.
ISBN 978-0-415-82255-8.
21 p.
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Eide, Wenche Barth & Kracht, Uwe
(2007).
Food and Human Rights in Development: Evolving Issues and Emerging Applications, volume 2.
Intersentia.
ISBN 978-90-5095-459-4.
566 p.
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Eide, Wenche Barth & Kracht, Uwe
(2006).
Food and Human Rights in Development. Volume 2: Envolving issues and emerging applications.
Intersentia.
ISBN 90-5095-459-6.
450 p.
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Eide, Wenche Barth & Kracht, Uwe
(2005).
Food and Human Rights in Development, Volume 1; Legal and institutional dimensions and selected topics.
Intersentia.
ISBN 90-5095-385-9.
528 p.
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Eide, Wenche Barth & Kracht,, U.
(2005).
Food and Human Rights in Development Volume I: Legal and Institutional dimensions.
Intersentia.
ISBN 90-5095-385-9.
528 p.
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Eide, Asbjørn & Eide, Wenche Barth
(1999).
Article 25 - the right to an adequate standard of living.
Kluwer Academic Publishers.
ISBN 90-411-1168-9.
28 p.
View all works in Cristin
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Eide, Wenche Barth; Torheim, Liv Elin; Løvhaug, Anne Lene & Eide, Asbjørn
(2017).
Progress in defining and promoting respect for human rights in the food and nutrition-relevant business sector.
UNSCN News.
p. 95–101.
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Eide, Wenche Barth & Maunder, Eleni M.W.
(2016).
A Human rights-Based Approach to Community and Public Nutrition. Theoretical Underpinnings and Evolving Experiences.
In Temple, Norman J (Eds.),
Community Nutrition for Developing Countries.
AU Press and UNISA.
ISSN 978-1927356111.
doi:
10.15215/aupress/9781927356111.01.
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Torheim, Liv Elin; Eide, Wenche Barth; Granheim, Sabrina IDO; Oshaug, Arne; Roalkvam, Sidsel & Afrim-Narh, Abraham Tetteh
[Show all 7 contributors for this article]
(2014).
“Big Food”challenges: Can the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights serve to promote the human rights to adequate food and health?
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2013).
SOCIAL PROTECTION FOR FOOD SECURITY: THE RIGHT OF VULNERABLE MOTHERS TO SOCIAL ASSISTANCE PROMOTING ADEQUATE SUPPLEMENTARY FEEDING FOR YOUNG CHILDREN.
Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism.
ISSN 0250-6807.
63,
p. 1095–1095.
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Rendal, K.T.; Iversen, Per Ole; Eide, Wenche Barth & Marais, M.L.
(2013).
HOW DOES THE ROLE OF GRANDMOTHERS AS PRIMARY CAREGIVERS IN POOR HOUSEHOLDS, COMPROMISE THEIR OWN RIGHT TO ADEQUATE FOOD?
Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism.
ISSN 0250-6807.
63,
p. 670–670.
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2009).
FRAMING NUTRITION POLICIES AND ACTION THROUGH GOVERNANCE BASED ON HUMAN RIGHTS NORMS AND PRINCIPLES: ACHIEVEMENTS AND PROGRESS.
Annals of Nutrition and Metabolism.
ISSN 0250-6807.
55,
p. 36–37.
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2002).
Gender and Nutrition.
HUNGRY for what is right.
?(3).
Show summary
Gender differences in access to resources, including resources for food (ownership to land, capital, technology) as well as to adequate food itself, have been well demonstrated. They are often rooted in clear discriminatory practices, which may be culturally based or coming about as effects of ¿modernisation¿ and economic and social change, usually a combination of both. The importance of understanding the impact of gender differences on the nutrition of women themselves has been accentuated in recent years through the new insights and hypothesis that a malnourished mother may give birth to a child who is already malnourished from within the womb. Newer insights point to a possible link between malnutrition during foetal life and a subsequent ¿programming¿ of that individual for greater susceptibility to diseases also in later life, of a kind that one earlier connected with affluence in the richer countries - heart disease, obesity and diabetes. This underscores the enormous importance of good nutrition for women and the girl child, soon to be a mother. This should be addressed under a human rights perspective and include arrangements to end possible gender-discriminatory feeding practices at a critical period in life, with long-term and possibly inter-generational nutritional consequences for a healthier population.
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Eide, Wenche Barth; Oshaug, Arne & Sidibe, Ousmane
(2001).
Mobilising states and other actors for a right-based approach to food and nutrition - exploring some critical aspects of the process.
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2001).
Nutrition from below and from above. Bokanmeldelse: Thomas J. Marchione (ed.): Scaling Up, Scaling Down. Overcoming Malnutrition in Developing Countries. Gordon and Breach Publishers[/Overseas Publishers Association, Amsteldijk, The Netherlands], 1999.
Scandinavian Journal of Nutrition.
ISSN 1102-6480.
45(3),
p. 37–37.
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2001).
World Food System - Serving all or serving some?
[Radio].
USA World Food Day Teleconference/George Washington University, Washington DC : US National World Food Day Committee.
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(2001).
Promoting nutrition security goals: defining and assessing accountability through a human rights approach The contribution of community capacity development for monitoring aspects of the realisation of the rights to food, health and care for nutritional well-being.
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Eide, Wenche Barth
(1999).
The right to food as a human right - in Europe, too?
Show summary
The paper reviews the growing opportunities for approaching food and nutrition policy and programmes from a human rights perspective. Recommendations made by the World Food Summit in 1996, the 1997 Reform Programme for the United Nations System, and the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights in 1998, have led to considerable international efforts to clarify how to monitor, promote and protect the right to food and nutrition as part of the wider human rights framework under international law. Activities have also recently been set in motion in a few countries to identify legislative and administrative steps to comply with important international conventions containing provisions on the right to food and nutrition. Much of the concern and debate on linkages between human rights and human and social development have been related to hunger and malnutrition in third world countries. Is there a similar reason for adoption of a human rights approach to food and nutrition issues in Europe? The paper provides arguments for a positive answer and shows how European countries that have ratified relevant international conventions are under legal obligation to help ensure the realization of everybody's right to adequate food and to good nutrition.
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Eide, Wenche Barth & Valente, Flavio Luis Schieck
(1998).
Operationalising Rights and 0bligations in the Fields, Nutrition, Water and Health - and their Interconnections.
Show summary
The paper illustrates a fundamental axiom in the conceptualization and
language of human rights: their interrelatedness, interdependence and
indivisibility. Food, nutrition, water and health are not discrete
goods to be enjoyed one-by-one. The full enjoyment of each right
depends on the enjoyment of all of the others in a situation of
mutually reinforcing conditions. This is a strength, but can pose
problems when trying to delineate the more precise content of each. A
global process is now needed of states and non-state actors learning
from each other how to translate this universality to local contexts
and opportunities. This can only be done from within a country itself
while the international community can propose and provide some useful
tools. Examples of such tools are given, these can in turn be refined
in the global-national interactive process of operationalizing the
rights to food, nutrition, water, health and other components of the
right to an adequate standard of living or livelihood security. The
evolving case of Brazil is discussed to demonstrate how key human
development concerns is being integrating with economic, social and
cultural rights, starting with the right to food and nutrition.
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Published
Apr. 13, 2011 2:41 PM
- Last modified
Aug. 31, 2018 4:15 PM