USAID Nutrition Resource Hub
This concept note describes evidence and opportunities for programmatic approaches to engage young people in food systems activities for improved diet and nutrition outcomes. Based on a desk review of existing literature and a short series of key informant interviews, the note proposes categorization of food systems approaches to engage youth, briefly summarizes the state of evidence, and highlights opportunities and knowledge gaps to begin to inform and inspire programming.
USAID Nutrition Resource Hub
The Forest Garden Approach diversifies farming systems with trees and food crops that meet subsistence needs and market opportunities. While conventional agriculture programs focus on one or few crops, the Forest Garden Approach is rooted in diversifying each farm with many food crops and thousands of trees so farming families will be self-sufficient in their production of food, timber and non-timber forest products. This training set includes a facilitator's guide, training of trainers guide, technical manual, and workbooks for four years.
Event
In response to the pandemic and other global shocks threatening to derail progress made towards achieving nutrition targets, the ACT-NM launched the COVID-19 and Nutrition Analytical Framework.
Food Systems Toolkit
There are increasing calls to take a food systems approach to food and nutrition policy; however, it is often unclear how policymakers can adopt this approach and adapt it to their particular context. R4D and the Centre for Food Policy at City at University of London developed an evidence review and four technical briefs to respond to this challenge. The briefs provide practical guidance on how to operationalize a food systems approach to achieve improved food systems outcomes.
Food Systems Toolkit
The relationship between food processing and diets is complex; expanding the production of processed foods may play a role in both supporting and hindering food systems in delivering safe, nutritious diets. In regions of the world with high burdens of malnutrition—including both overweight/obesity, micronutrient deficiency, and undernutrition—food processing can be leveraged to improve diets and nutrition. This brief for USAID and implementing partners assists with the design and implementation of food processing activities for improved diets and nutrition.
Food Systems Toolkit
This tool makes it easier for practitioners and decision makers to understand dietary patterns and nutrient intake. Such information is critical to design, monitor, and evaluate efforts to improve diets. The decision tool provides existing data sources and data collection tools related to the different target groups and diet questions below.
The tools provide information on diets of five target groups:
Food Systems Toolkit
This tool offers an evidence-based list of illustrative nutrition-sensitive behaviors to help activity designers and implementers design more effective approaches to increase uptake and adoption of behaviors to improve nutrition outcomes using a food systems lens.
Food Systems Toolkit
This journal article summarizes results from a scoring exercise and expert survey to determine the suitability of data collection assessments for measuring market food environments in LMICs.
Food Systems Toolkit
Social norms influence the meaning and value of food as well as roles and expectations. This guide is for nutrition program planners and implementers planning norm-responsive activities within nutrition-sensitive or nutrition-specific programming. The guide includes tips and tools to improve program outcomes by understanding and responding to social norms at key points in the program cycle and incorporates background on how to identify norms and monitoring and measuring normative change.
Food Systems Toolkit
This five-page document provides an overview of the Bureau for Resilience and Food Security's (RFS) conceptual framework.
Explains the conceptual framework’s purpose, components, and suggestions for how it can be used