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KNOWLEDGE FOR POLICY

Supporting policy with scientific evidence

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Publication | 2024

“Fill the nutrient gap” diet modelling and situation analysis contributes to multisectoral policy and programme decision-making*

Global Food and Nutrition Security

Highlights:

  • The FNG has been applied widely to inform advocacy and decision-making for nutrition-sensitive policy and programming.
  • Government and non-government actors have applied FNG outputs in policymaking directly or through nutrition advocacy.
  • Users valued the FNG’s ability to reframe nutrition issues and relevance across sectors, particularly in fragile contexts.
  • Some opportunities for policy uptake were missed, highlighting undefined roles and capacity gaps for evidence translation.
  • FNG should continue to be done through meaningful partnerships with national actors, responding to priorities they identify.

Abstract:

This study examined how The World Food Programme’s Fill the Nutrient Gap (FNG) situation analysis has facilitated decision-making to support nutrition. Semi-structured interviews were held with 60 ‘broker’, ‘technical analyst’ and ‘consumer’ end users of the FNG in 11 countries. Almost all FNG cases, especially those conducted in 'development' contexts, had objectives of informing government decision-making, with some, especially in 'fragile' settings, also focused on informing WFP’s own programming. The FNG was credited with contributing evidence to national or sub-national nutrition strategy development, informing advocacy and building momentum and improving understanding around key nutrition issues. Internally, the FNG helped promote WFP’s nutrition-sensitive programming approaches. This article discusses these findings and explores how the FNG’s policy contribution could be strengthened in future applications.