Limitations and constraints of Colombia's Food and Nutrition Plan (PAN)

Abstract Ambitious integrated nutrition projects were started in the 1970s in some developing countries. Colombia's Food and Nutrition Plan (PAN) was an early and remarkable example of this model. Its short life-span — from 1976 until 1982 — was long enough to show that such a complex scheme was unlikely to work even where, as in PAN's case, an attempt is made from the onset to provide the necessary political support. The evolution and constraints of PAN are examined, together with the reasons for it being so easily dismantled.