Synthesis of Guidance on Agriculture-nutrition linkages

1. Synthesis of Guidance on Agriculture-nutrition linkages Anna Herforth, consultant to FAO AIARD conference June 5, 2012

2. Purpose and audience • Provide an updated and complete list of current agriculture-nutrition guidance and strategies from international development institutions • Provide an analysis of the key messages • underscore key points of emerging consensus • expose differences • Audiences: • International development community • Country-level policy-makers and program-planners

3. Methods • Inclusion criteria • Bilateral, multilateral, or NGO publications • Institutional publications intended for public use (no deliberative documents or unofficial working papers) • Almost all were published after 2008 • All documents were coded for themes (annex) • Minimum inclusion criterion for a theme: > 3 institutions • Review process to date • Ag2Nut CoP (http://knowledge-gateway.org/ag2nut) • Authors of reviewed docs • FAO staff meeting

4. Overview of documents identified • 44 publications were identified • 26 institutions have published guidance, a statement, or explorations of the evidence • Categories (# institutions) • Guiding principles and operational guidance (10) • Guidance from UN high-level bodies (2) • Manuals (5) • Statements and strategies (9) • “Other” - academic reviews, a community conversation, and a research program (6)

5. This synthesis draft includes only guidance notes • 10 institutions • 16 publications

6. Planning • Incorporate explicit nutrition objectives • Assess the context to identify and build on existing efforts, knowledge, and resources • Do No Harm • Measure impact through monitoring and evaluation • Dietary diversity, stunting • Target the most vulnerable • smallholder farmers, women, and poor/food insecure HHs • Maximize impact of household income • Mainly through women • Increase equitable access to resources (e.g. land, water, credit) • Leverage multisectoral coordination • at least in the planning phase, and in the implementation phase where possible

7. Doing: Main activities • Diversify productionand livelihoods • Increase production of nutrient-dense foods vegetables, fruits, animal source foods, underutilized foods, legumes, and biofortified crops; specifics depend on context • Reduce post-harvest losses and improve processing • Increase market access and opportunities • Reduce seasonality of food insecurity …all the above approaches should do these three things : • Empower women • Incorporate nutrition education • Manage natural resources

8. Supporting • Improve policy coherence supportive to nutrition • Reform of food price policies, subsidies, and trade policies • Pro-poor policies, e.g. social safety nets • Improve good governance for nutrition • National nutrition strategy and action plan • Build capacity in ministry staff at all levels, and increase nutrition staff • Communicate and continue to advocate for nutrition

10. Conclusions • First: Current guidance shows a high degree of alignment between institutions • How can points of consensus be leveraged? • A few gaps • Collaboration with the agriculture sector in making guidance actionable • production/income/nutrition trade-offs and co-benefits • Costing of recommended interventions • Incentives for context assessment and effective multisectoral collaboration • Viability of agricultural extension (vis-a-vis nutrition education) • How to improve market access for smallholders • Market-oriented production of women’s crops

11. Next steps