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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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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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…
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Revisiting Core Indicators: Principles from the updated WHO-UNICEF Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) indicator guidance
In April 2021, WHO and UNICEF released updated definitions and measurement guidance for indicators to assess infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices. Originally released in 2008, indicators of diet quality for children 0-23 months of age have been an essential tool for policy makers and program planners within and across low- and middle- income countries (LMICs). The indicators, which…
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Nutrition-Sensitive Social Protection Programs: What, Why and How Can We Measure Them?
What is nutrition-sensitive social protection? Nutrition-sensitive sectors address the underlying determinants of maternal and child malnutrition (e.g. food security, education), and investments in these sectors are critical to global strategies for eliminating undernutrition. As a cross-cutting dimension, social protection is core to nutrition-sensitive actions. Social protection initiatives aim to protect families from poverty and vulnerability by offering a mix of…
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What data do nutrition stakeholders use and how can we better meet their needs?
The global nutrition community is remarkably diverse: its stakeholders include people working in vastly different fields, from health to agriculture, to water and sanitation and in roles ranging from program management to policy development to issue-based advocacy. Some work for small community-based organizations while others work for national governments, or huge multilateral or UN organizations with a global focus. It’s logical…
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Unpacking a framework for measuring infant and young child feeding counselling coverage in household surveys
Infant and young child feeding (IYCF) counselling is important to facilitate optimal feeding practices and improve child survival. I sat down with Sunny Kim, Research Fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute and DataDENT team member, to discuss the recent paper “Measuring coverage of infant and young child feeding counselling interventions: A framework and empirical considerations for survey question…
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2019 DataDENT Highlights
2019 was an exciting year for DataDENT with milestones addressing challenges across the nutrition data value chain. Here we revisit our work highlighted through our top blog posts from this past year and look ahead at what is to come in 2020. New Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) nutrition data The DHS Program accepted recommendations for changes to the core…