As Director of Measurement for USAID Advancing Nutrition, understanding which indicators best measure the results of nutrition programs is always top of mind. I first became interested in this issue after observing very well-implemented programs achieve great success in increasing nutrition knowledge and improving nutrition behaviors, but with little impact on the prevalence of stunting, a measure of a child’s height or linear growth compared to his or her age.

USAID Advancing Nutrition’s resource, Stunting: Considerations for Use as an Indicator in Nutrition Projects, summarizes the strengths and limitations of relying on stunting as an indicator of project impact, marking a turning point in what defines successful monitoring and evaluation of nutrition interventions.