Background Food security is essential for a healthy and productive population. In 1996, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) stated that food security “exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” FAO recognized four dimensions…
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How can N4G 2021 commitments strengthen the nutrition data value chain?
On 7-8 December 2021, the Government of Japan will host the second Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit. N4G is a high-profile advocacy event that calls on governments, development partners, and the private sector to make public commitments to actions that will accelerate progress to the World Health Assembly 2025 Nutrition Targets and 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The event is strategically…
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Advancing the quality of care measurement agenda for nutrition
Much of DataDENT’s work has focused in on improving the measurement of nutrition intervention coverage. We have worked to develop new coverage indicators for Maternal, Infant, and Young Child Nutrition (MIYCN) counseling and Nutrition Sensitive Social Protection, advocated for uptake of additional coverage indicators in the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS)-8 core questionnaire and national surveys in Nigeria, India and…
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Financing Nutrition Data and Information Systems: Three Recommendations for Donors to Consider Ahead of N4G
The Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit in December 2021 will provide a critical opportunity for the nutrition community to renew and expand commitments to address malnutrition globally in pursuit of the 2025 World Health Assembly (WHA) global nutrition targets. Data-driven accountability is a core focus of the N4G vision as improved data, measurement, and use is essential to drive equitable…
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Launch of the Compendium of Nutrition Intervention Coverage Indicators & Questions for Household Surveys
We are thrilled to launch the Compendium of Nutrition Intervention Coverage Indicators & Questions for Household Surveys today! The Compendium is a technical resource that can help national and subnational stakeholders fill information gaps around who is receiving nutrition interventions through health systems. Building on a set of indicators proposed in “Measuring the coverage of nutrition interventions along the continuum…
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Are data available for tracking progress on nutrition policies and programs in South Asia?
The South Asian countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka) have endorsed the 2030 global nutrition targets of Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG 2). Efforts are underway in the region to implement global recommendations on nutrition actions to address all forms of malnutrition along the life-course. Despite these efforts, the South Asia region continues to have the…
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Let’s make a plan!
Last month the Micronutrient Forum (MNF) released a Micronutrient Data Generation Initiative Strategic Plan—a comprehensive strategy for how to fill long-standing gaps in data on the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies across low- and middle-income countries. The strategy is noteworthy on multiple levels, but in particular for its theory of change which describes the steps and enabling factors required to achieve…
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Measuring the Effectiveness of Nutrition Advocacy
What is advocacy for nutrition policy? Many policy reforms emerge after sustained periods of advocacy. In the field of nutrition, advocates have played a critical role in raising awareness about the causes and consequences of malnutrition and which interventions governments should pursue to improve the health of their populations. Advocacy can be defined as “a continuous and adaptive process of…
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Assessing data visualization literacy and preferences for more effective approaches to visualize nutrition data in Nigeria
Data visualization is widely used in nutrition to summarize and communicate nutrition data. There are several aspects of data visualization that make it a viable strategy to neatly collate information and (hopefully) provoke action: (1) humans more rapidly process visual information compared to text; (2) design principles can be applied to attune with humans’ short-term memory; and (3) research has…
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Mind the (Data) Gap: Understanding the gender dimensions of food security
Gender is a social determinant of health which can have a significant impact on an individual’s nutrition status. The 2020 Global Nutrition Report (GNR) Nutrition Equity Framework illustrates how basic and underlying determinants, including gender, are interlinked and contribute towards nutrition inequity. Sociocultural perception of gender affects power dynamics and access to nutrition services and interventions. For example, gendered norms…