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Photo Credit: Wezzie Grace Kenan/Feed the Children
Focus Area(s):
Knowledge Management
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning

Computer modeling can help policy makers find tailored solutions to address malnutrition in different countries and contexts. The New York Academy of Sciences Nutrition Modeling Consortium (NMC) brought together experts in nutrition modeling to improve the understanding and use of modeling tools for the design and implementation of effective nutrition policies and programs.

USAID Advancing Nutrition has participated in the Nutrition Modeling Consortium from 2018 to the NMC's final meeting in October of 2021. To bring learning from the consortium to the wider global nutrition community, the project hosted several learning and sharing events about nutrition modeling tools. We hosted a webinar on how two tools, Optima Nutrition and MINIMOD, can be used together to assist in understanding how governments, donors, and other key stakeholders can maximize scarce budgetary resources to achieve nutrition outcomes. We also hosted technical presentations on other tools, including PROFILES and nutrition costing tools and the Strengthening Economic Evaluation for Multi-sectoral Strategies for Nutrition (SEEMS-Nutrition) project. The PROFILES and nutrition costing tools generate information that is used to advocate for government and stakeholder investment in and commitment to multi-sectoral nutrition interventions. SEEMS-Nutrition is working to fill information gaps on costs, cost-effectiveness, and benefits of scaling up food system strategies in low-resource areas with high levels of malnutrition. The project has generated new evidence on costs and cost-effectiveness of multi-sectoral projects that can be used for modeling the costs and effectiveness of multi-sectoral nutrition interventions.

USAID Advancing Nutrition collaborated with the Nutrition Modeling Consortium to connect nutrition modelers with policy makers, program designers and implementers, and other end users working across different sectors to share nutrition modeling tools, resources, and experiences to help improve nutrition programming and outcomes. You can learn more about the NMC and a number of modeling tools that can be used to address policy and program questions on the NMC website.

Featured Resources

 
A selection of resources published by USAID Advancing Nutrition

Household-level Consumption Data Can Be Redistributed for Individual-level Optifood Diet Modeling: Analysis from Four Countries

Journal Article Bangladesh Guatemala Kenya Uganda English
Improving dietary quality requires changes across food and agriculture systems to improve access to affordable nutritious foods, especially for women and young children. Local, national, and global leaders need reliable data to inform policies that strengthen the food systems families depend on.

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Modeling Food Fortification Contributions to Micronutrient Requirements in Malawi Using Household Consumption and Expenditure Surveys

Journal Article Africa Malawi English
Large-scale food fortification has the potential to increase micronutrient supplies in the food system but more information is needed to understand whether current strategies are equitably benefiting populations with the greatest micronutrient needs.

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See more resources in the USAID Nutrition Resource Hub ›

News

USAID Advancing Nutrition Closes in Uganda with a Celebration of Milestones Reached to Reduce Micronutrient Deficiencies through Large-Scale Food Fortification

From 2021-2023, USAID Advancing Nutrition supported the Government of Uganda in advancing the country’s food fortification program.
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