The “Fill the Nutrient Gap” analysis: An approach to strengthen nutrition situation analysis and decision making towards multisectoral policies and systems change

Abstract

Improved nutrition situation analysis can increase the understanding of the likely magnitude and main causes of the nutrient gap among a particular target group, for example, children under 2 or pregnant and lactating women, in a particular context. The World Food Programme, with input from University of California Davis, International Food Policy Research Institute, Epicentre, Harvard University, Mahidol University, Save the Children, and UNICEF, has developed a framework for strengthened nutrition situation analysis and decision making called the “Fill the Nutrient Gap” (FNG), which aims to support identification of strategies to increase availability, access, and choice of nutritious foods, to ultimately improve nutrient intake. The FNG engages stakeholders from different sectors throughout the analytical process to provide input and discuss findings to collectively identify and prioritize context-specific strategies. The FNG analysis contributes to better understanding the nutrition situation because it (a) focuses on the dietary intake side of the malnutrition framework and analyses in-depth the nutrient intake of different target groups; (b) linear programming is used in combination with review of secondary data to characterize barriers to nutrient intake, in particular to understand the availability, cost and affordability of nutritious diets for households and target groups with higher nutritional needs, and model potential interventions to improve them; (c) it links the nutrition situation analysis to decision making by providing an evidence base for decision makers to inform their strategies; (d) it facilitates multisectoral discussion on barriers to nutrient intake and enables a prioritization of context-specific strategies (both nutrition specific and sensitive) to improve the nutrition situation across food, health, and social protection systems.