Global Alliance For Improved Nutrition

Enhancing value chains for under consumed foods all foods are not created equally - some have exceptionally high levels of one or more nutrients that are important to human health, and, if consumed in greater quantities, could contribute significantly to improving dietary quality among population groups most vulnerable to malnutrition. Under this program of work, gain has set out to identify high-potential foods in the countries where we work; to understand the cultural and economic constraints to higher consumption, and to design and implement integrated solutions that will result in higher consumption. Some of this work includes crop and plant varieties unique to particular settings that are no longer commonly consumed, despite their nutritional value.a number of foods are particularly rich in nutrients that are commonly lacking in resource-poor populations such as iron, zinc, folate, vitamin a, calcium, and vitamin b12. Priority foods for improving dietary quality have been identified by gain researchers ty beal and flaminia ortenzi. When examples of these priority foods are also accessibly priced and can be produced in an environmentally sustainable manner, they become prime candidates for efforts to increase access and consumption by vulnerable groups.numerous barriers have been identified that prevent consumers from accessing these foods; they occur at all stages of the supply chain from production inputs right through to household behaviors. Gain's approach to analyzing supply chain blockages is described here. More recently, we have used dynamic system modelling to understand the potential of different intervention strategies. We also always use qualitative research methods to understand consumer motivation and behavior.building on these insights, in 2022, gain began to implement a new generation of large projects targeting priority food value chains. Each project works on all of supply, demand, and the enabling environment and builds on existing investments to strengthen the relevant value chains. All these projects will be assessed on their ability to change consumption frequency and quantity among low-income consumers, and the largest projects under this program aim to improve the diets of over one million consumers.currently, we are working on vegetables in kenya, benin and uganda; milk and other dairy products in ethiopia, and animal-source foods (eggs, poultry, and small dried fish) in mozambique.

Enabling coherent food systems policieswe support governments to institutionalize processes which will help them to develop and implement more coherent food systems policies. This improves access to healthier diets delivered through more sustainable food systems. We do this by developing tools and evidence to support the design and implementation of integrated food systems action plans and by helping to engage and build the capacities of key stakeholders. We document and share experience on best practice approaches and adopt these learnings to improve development partner collaboration.nourishing food systems pathways strengthens government-led food system policy design, alignment, and delivery. Nourishing food pathways is an ambitious program that seeks to accelerate progress towards the sustainable development goals (particularly sdg2) by supporting inclusive and coherent food systems transformation in ten countries.this program builds on work conducted during the un food systems summit, aiming to support and strengthen the design and delivery of the national food systems' transformation pathways. We will work with over one hundred partners across eleven countries to deliver these programs.workstream 1: policy coherencethis workstream is foundational and focuses on supporting governments to strengthen policy alignment and implementation across sectors towards food system goals. Gain is directly involved in planning work with lead ministries working on food system pathways. It will involve intensive, daily work under national government-led structures, together with government policy units and national think tanks and universities to develop, refine and implement the national pathways. To support this process, we are developing a diagnostic tool to help stakeholders identify where there is food system-related policy incoherence between government agencies or ministries as potential entry points for alignment (where this is appropriate, desirable and feasible).workstream 2: including unheard voices to improve decision makingyouth, those working in the informal food sector and local-city governments need a greater voice to reshape the food systems that affect them. Women and girls are a key cross-section of this group. This workstream focuses on including unheard voices in food system pathway development and implementation specifically youth and local stakeholders. Through girls' youth groups, participatory action research will be conducted to better understand their experiences and priorities. Leveraging local leadership, traditional market committees and local governments will be supported to co-design inclusive governance mechanisms that recognizes their interests and improves agency in the pathway design and implementation process.workstream 3: motivate and empower consumers to shape their food systemhere, we focus on motivating and empowering consumers to shape their food system through food culture alliances and social protection programs. Through local food culture alliances, we're working with a diverse set of influential partners to shift consumer preferences towards nutritious and safe foods. We are also helping to improve the nutrition impacts of social protection programs by promoting human-centered design approaches, reinforcing linkages with local food value chains, and advocating for more nutrition-sensitive social protection policies. Workstream 4: private sector financethis workstream focuses on aligning and increasing private sector finance for food system transformation. It will involve four incentive pathways to support healthy diet goals within country food system pathways. Firstly, we will work with businesses of all sizes to direct their investments to evidence-based actions to reduce hunger through the zero hunger private sector pledge. Second, we will work to develop evidence based costed pathways towards healthier diets that the private sector can invest in. Third, we will work to create incentives for businesses of all sizes to direct more of their investments to evidence-based actions that improve access to healthier diets, including the incorporation of nutrition considerations into environmental, social and governance (esg) standards. Lastly, we will work with development finance institutions (dfis), seeking to create mechanisms that attract private sector investment towards small and medium-sized enterprises (sme) that can contribute to improved nutrition.workstream 5: nutrition and environmentthe focus here is on connecting nutrition and environmental agendas within food system pathways, at a practical level, by looking for actions and business models that generate and support nutrition-environment synergies.this will entail making plant sources of protein and micronutrients, such as legumes, fruits and vegetables, more accessible and desirable as well as exploring ways of maximizing the nutritional impact of animal-sourced food production, while cutting greenhouse gas emissions (ghg).workstream 6: generate evidence, track change, and inspire actionthe last workstream focuses on assessing progress towards food systems transformation and documenting learning from the pathway development and implementation process. Qualitative and quantitative approaches will be used to help us identify what food systems transformation looks like and how we know when it is happening. The development of subnational food system dashboards will support evidence-based food system policymaking, while nutrition connect will support knowledge mobilization focused on public-private engagement in food systems. Lastly, the annual countdown to 2030 report will track the performance of key food system indicators for all countries to promote accountability in food systems.by supporting governments and partners leading on food systems transformation, gain is working to ensure that policies are coherent, all voices are included, private sector finance is mobilized, nutrition and environment agendas are connected, and data and knowledge is tracked and shared. Together we can transform food systems to deliver more nutritious diets within our planetary boundaries.

Enhancing nutrition with food system data & evidencethrough our food systems data and evidence initiatives, we seek to make a substantial contribution to the broader research, program, and policy landscape, enabling gain and others to address local and global challenges, foster innovation, and catalyse positive change on a global scale.the food systems countdown initiative ("the countdown") aims to enable this understanding by monitoring the state of food systems transformation through relevant data. The countdown is an interdisciplinary collaboration of scientists that emerged from the 2021 united nations food systems summit. It seeks to provide food system actors and stakeholders (e.g., civil society, governments, and international organizations) with actionable evidence to make decisions that can bring about food system transformation.over a two-year process, the countdown collaborators developed a framework to monitor food systems across five themes: (1) diets, nutrition, and health; (2) environment, natural resources, and production; (3) livelihoods, poverty, and equity; (4) governance; and (5) resilience. The countdown then used a rigorous, multistakeholder process to arrive at indicators to monitor change across these five themes. The first annual countdown paper and report, showcasing these indicators, were released in december 2023. They depict the current state of national food systems, providing a baseline that can be used to guide priorities for investment, research, and policymaking and assess future progress.global diet quality projectthe global diet quality project aims to establish the architecture and data necessary for monitoring diet quality on a global scale. The project has developed a reliable and feasible method for data collection, along with a suite of diet quality indicators that encompass both nutrient adequacy and the prevention of non-communicable diseases (ncds). As of 2024, it has adapted and translated its 5-minute questionnaire, the diet quality questionnaire (dqq), for use in over 120 countries and has collected nationally representative data in 85 countries across all continents, representing 85% of the global population. The global diet quality project is a partnership between gallup, harvard university, and gain. This project aims to collect dietary quality data in the general adult population across countries worldwide, and to provide tools for valid and feasible diet quality monitoring within countries. The project enables the collection of consistent, comparable dietary data across countries for the first time.all data are collected in the gallup world poll. The dqq was administered in national probability-based samples of civilian, non-institutionalized individuals of any gender, aged 15 and older. Data collection occurred either using face-to-face or telephone surveys. Country-specific details of data collection can be found here. The gallup world poll is the only survey in the world that covers more than 98% of the world's adult population through annual, nationally representative surveys with comparable metrics across countries.food systems dashboardthe food systems dashboard (fsd) is the first tool that brings together country-level and subnational data across all components of food systems and provides deeper analysis and guidance on how to use this data in meaningful ways.initiative on climate action and nutrition (i can)i can aims to catalyse climate action for nutrition benefits, and nutrition action for climate benefitsi-can was launched in 2022 during cop27 by the presidency of egypt, and is co-chaired by egypt and gain, with core partners including who, fao and the sun movement. I-can gained significant attention in 2023, being featured at various high-level international events and mentioned by the director-generals of both who and fao during cop28 in dubai. In 2024, i-can will focus on providing national-level support to country governments.

Cross cutting projects and other programs