This simple guide is for those responsible for the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of investment projects in food and agriculture (including and in addition to value chains, social development, and rural development) that need to demonstrate that they lead to intermediary results toward improved nutrition. This compendium aims to gather the main existing nutrition-relevant indicators that can be used for M&E of food and agriculture investments, and to show which type of investments each type of indicator is most appropriate for.
This publication provides a list of food system-based intervention options to improve nutrition and a set concrete entry points for maximizing the impact of each intervention. Developed through leveraging different expertise in FAO, it is a key resource to assist professionals involved in different areas - from breeding to production; from food transformation and packaging to transportation and trade; from marketing and value chain to food safety; from food labelling to consumer education - to u nderstand the linkages with nutrition, and to increase their contribution for a world free from malnutrition in all its forms.
More than a decade has passed since the publication of the series entitled Social Analysis of Agriculture and Rural Investment Projects, which comprises three complementary manuals – the Manager’s, Practitioner’s and Field guides. During this time, conflict, climate change and economic downturns have been driving up poverty, hunger, and socioeconomic inequalities, reducing the resilience of agrifood systems. In response, the FAO Investment Centre has updated the Social Analysis guides to address the evolving and volatile rural transformation context, providing programme managers, practitioners and field workers with a set of enhanced tools for the design, implementation and evaluation of inclusive investments in agrifood systems. Today’s investments must prioritize more demand-driven, people-centred, culturally sensitive and locally owned sustainable approaches, with increased attention to reducing gender and other inequalities. Operationalizing these principles contributes to FAO’s and financing agencies’ objectives of ending poverty, improving food security and nutrition, and reducing inequalities. The goal of the updated guides is to support investments that contribute to inclusive, resilient and sustainable agrifood systems, aligned with the outcomes of the UN Food Systems Summit, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the core principle of leaving no one behind. This publication is part of the Investment Toolkits series under the FAO Investment Centre's Knowledge for Investment (K4I) series. The contents of this publication have been turned into three e-leaning courses, which are accessible for free through the FAO E-learning Academy.
With the aim of enhancing nutrition sensitivity in Global Environment Facility (GEF) investments and programming, this guidance note is based on a review of 12 purposively selected GEF-6 and GEF-7 projects within the FAO portfolio identified as having the potential to be nutrition-sensitive. Following an agrifood systems approach, the guidance note provides a list of potential opportunities for action that could be considered in GEF project design to ensure nutrition gains are achieved as co-benefits alongside the formally set global environmental benefit (GEB) targets. The note is the result of the collaboration between the Food and Nutrition Division of FAO and the FAO OCB-GEF Coordination Unit.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) supports the mainstreaming of nutrition into national development plans and activities to strengthen agriculture, food, health, education and social protection systems, among other things. This guidance note helps integrating nutrition across the UNSDCF cycle. It is designed to be flexible and applicable in all phases of the Cooperation Framework, highlighting opportunities to integrate and strengthen the focus on nutrition throughout the process. The guidance note complements other existing tools developed by specialized United Nations’ agencies, programmes and funds, as well as by the UN-Nutrition Secretariat, and it can be equally utilized in countries under the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) or the UNSDCF.
This technical guidance brief summarizes some of the current thinking on how livestock can address the nutritional needs of vulnerable households and groups. It outlines recommendations for designing and implementing livestock interventions to leverage nutrition outcomes. It is intended for use by programme planners and managers working for government, humanitarian and development agencies involved in designing and implementing livestock-related policies and programmes, with the objective of helping in integration of nutrition outcomes in their work. Additionally, it is aimed at those involved in developing nutritional polices and strategies, to take into consideration the potential of livestock based strategies to improve nutrition.
This handbook provides researchers and students with an overview of the field of sustainability indicators (SIs) as applied in the interdisciplinary field of sustainable development. The editors have sought to include views from the center ground of SI development but also divergent ideas which represent some of the diverse, challenging and even edgy observations which are prominent in the wider field of SI thinking. The contributions in this handbook: • clearly set out the theoretical background and history of SIs, their origins, roots and initial goals • expand on the disciplines and modalities employed to develop SIs of various kinds • assess the various ways in which SI data are gathered and the availability (over space and time) and quality issues that surround them • explore the multiplex world of SIs as expressed in agencies around the world, via examples of SI practice and the lessons that have emerged from them • critically review the progress that SIs have made over the last 30 years • express the divergence of views which are held about the value of SIs, including differing theories on their efficacy, efficiency and ethics • explore the frontier of contemporary SI thinking, reviewing ante/post and systemic alternatives This multidisciplinary and international handbook will be of great interest to researchers, students and practitioners working in sustainability research and practice.
This document supports stakeholders in translating the Second International Conference on Nutrition into specific country-specific actions, through 24 thematic sheets, ranging from food loss and waste prevention to social protection for nutrition.
The Programme Lessons build on previous guidance and incorporate the experiences and lessons learned from relevant field programmes and research initiatives, reflecting the cumulative experiences of diverse experts. They are aimed at programme planners and managers working to ensure that agricultural production will have a positive impact on young child nutrition, particularly in low-income countries.
