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Operationalizing a stronger HFS and nutrition orientation in IFAD-supported activities

How can the basic concepts and goals of household food and nutritional security be translated more effectively into relevant field activities? IFAD recognizes that there are no easy solutions to the multifaceted problems and causes of household food insecurity and malnutrition. The goal is rather to develop better and more user friendly analysis and strategy development tools and systematically to sensitize staff and collaborators on relevant concepts and practical ways of addressing HFS and nutritional concerns in IFAD projects. Budgetary constraints increase the urgency to achieve improved HFS with cost-effective instruments of improved analysis, planning and implementation. A number of instrumentalities are already available for food security and nutritional assessments, and the planning of interventions. Further work is needed to identify, field-test and refine appropriate instrumentalities.

Refining instrumentalities and operational tools

IFAD is about to embark on a three-year applied research programme with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to develop, test and disseminate more cost-effective operational tools for identifying the relative vulnerability of regions and specific population groups to food insecurity, determine the appropriate set of location-specific interventions and evaluate project impact in terms of HFS and nutrition goals.

Under the project, various instruments would be tested, including (i) vulnerability mapping to target the most vulnerable beneficiaries and assess their main risk factors; (ii) statistical methods to identify the most relevant underlying causal factors for food insecurity and malnutrition; (iii) practical, reliable and location-specific indicators for beneficiary identification, performance monitoring and impact evaluation; and (iv) enhanced participatory planning, implementation and monitoring methods. The research would also examine how logical framework planning methods could be used increasingly in the design and evaluation of HFS and nutrition objectives.

Sensitization of IFAD’s operational and field staff to HFS and nutrition concerns

A smooth operationalization of IFAD’s increased HFS and nutrition orientation has to be built on an increased awareness of the issues among operational staff at the field and headquarters level. HFS is often perceived as a complicated concept, and some of the literature may add to the confusion. A misleading but widespread assumption is that a stronger emphasis on HFS and nutrition in project design and implementation might result in lack of clarity on appropriate interventions and, possibly, cumbersome institutional arrangements. This perception needs to be revised. Operational divisions and field personnel must therefore be more closely involved in further operationalization of the HFS/nutrition strategy.

Coordination and consultation of UN activities

Collaboration on food security, health and nutrition issues is envisaged as a long-term initiative based on the expansion of existing activities. IFAD is committed to playing an active role in enlarging and strengthening the way in which the various agencies work together – and in particular, the Joint Consultative Group on Policy (JCGP) agencies¹⁹ – with the goal of achieving a closer harmonization of policies, programmes and procedures among these organizations, and a greater impact and cost-effectiveness for each agency’s specialized assistance. JCGP agencies, for instance, should increasingly join forces in the field, through the design and implementation of complementary activities in jointly financed programmes or projects. Coordination and collaboration should be particularly intensified at the levels of country policy and programme development, and inter-agency policy dialogue.

Country policy and programme level

At the country policy and programme development level, collaboration among JCGP agencies and other partners should emphasize (i) the development of better-coordinated policies, programmes and strategies in the areas of HFS, health and nutrition; (ii) the distribution of responsibilities among the various actors; (iii) the promotion of HFS and nutrition as a central theme in the national development discourse; and (iv) long-term investments in HFS and nutritional analysis capacity.

The development of complementary country food security and nutrition strategies and national action plans should be a key strategic element in improving the design of HFS and nutrition-relevant programmes, to coordinate their execution and ensure an enabling policy environment. JCGP agencies may want to coordinate their technical and financial resources to identify a country’s worst food-security and nutrition problems – in terms of risk and the population groups exposed to such risk – and to determine the most cost effective combination of actions for addressing these problems. In this context, the adequacy of current strategies and policies will have to be assessed. A set of prioritized policies, programmes and appropriate implementation mechanisms may have to be developed to reflect the objectives and priorities of agencies, building on prior international declarations and agreements.

The development of comprehensive food security and nutrition strategies and programmes must be increasingly undertaken in consultation and dialogue with the various private and public actors, ranging from the food-insecure households themselves to communities, civilsociety organizations, local and national governments, international agencies and bilateral donors. The proper division of labour will depend on country and community circumstances and capabilities. Given the ongoing decentralization efforts in many developing countries, the division of responsibility between local, district/state and central governments for ensuring food security, with much weight accorded to the former, merits particular attention.

Towards a programmatic approach to inter-agency collaboration

Inter-agency collaboration so far, for instance that between IFAD and UNICEF, has been based mainly on joint planning and implementation in specific projects. Ideally, however, collaboration should extend to the programme level and the design of programmatic country strategies. For instance, the broader concept of dietary adequacy and nutrition education in IFAD projects might be more systematically addressed by IFAD and UNICEF’s jointly adopting a focused programme-oriented approach in combating micronutrient deficiencies, in particular deficiencies in vitamin A and iron-foliate. While IFAD concentrated on systematically integrating the production of iron and vitamin-A-rich foods, such as green leafy vegetables or palm-oil, in its project portfolio, UNICEF would be responsible for the educational aspects, encouraging the proper preparation and regular consumption of these foods. Such an approach has already begun with projects that are being designed in Uganda and Nigeria.

Developing institutional analysis capacity and awareness

The systematic development of countries’ institutional planning, monitoring and management capacities in the public sector and in civil-society institutions dealing with agriculture, health and general development planning must be given high priority. Support to sustainable institutional capacities for food security and nutrition analysis is a precondition not only for identifying the most appropriate HFS and nutrition interventions, but also for monitoring changing food security situations and evaluating the effects of food security and nutrition policies and programmes. Second, awareness-raising and policy guidance on the basic concepts of HFS and nutrition security and their practical implications in the field should receive particular attention, in order to mobilize policy-makers and practitioners and sharpen their focus on HFS and nutrition.

Issues in international inter-agency cooperation

At the international inter-agency level, agencies will have to address a number of issues relating to closer UN collaboration in the areas of HFS and nutrition strategies. They will need to review, in particular, the extent of (i) compatibility of mandates; (ii) agreements on concepts and priorities; (iii) different planning cycles; (iv) programme versus project approaches; and (v) agencies’ field presence. For instance, in the past, IFAD experienced two specific complications in inter-agency collaboration. First, UNICEF’s five-year country programme cycle and objectives do not always correspond to requests from recipient governments for IFAD loans. Second, collaboration at the country level is easier for organizations with a strong field presence than for IFAD, with its limited in-country planning and supervision capacities. This, however, should not be a constraint to greater interaction between agencies at the headquarters and field levels, especially at the inception of programmes and projects that could greatly enhance complementarity of policies, programmes, activities and funding.

In developing joint policy proposals and activities, UN agencies might find it useful to look at activities identified under the Action Plan of the IFAD Conference on Poverty and Hunger, which took place in September 1995, in Brussels. These activities include (i) the establishment of a popular coalition to eradicate hunger and poverty by promoting a policy dialogue to encourage the revival of agrarian reform, national plans for food security and support for capacity-building of civil-society organizations; (ii) the establishment of a "knowledge network" in support of these objectives; and (iii) strategies to build public awareness and political will for these goals.

Beyond the five member agencies of JCGP, the United Nations’ specialized agencies, such as FAO and WHO, and other multi- and bilateral development agencies need to play a key role in fostering cooperation at the country and project levels.²⁰ Of further interest to IFAD is its collaboration with the World Bank. The most recent agricultural sector reviews of the World Bank’s operations highlight poverty alleviation and food security as emerging challenges in the years ahead. The World Bank’s strength lies in reforming the macroeconomic policy and institutional framework and in addressing food security at the national level. This complements IFAD’s operational advantage and outreach at the rural household level. IFAD also intends to collaborate more closely with the World Bank and other donors in developing micro-project financing for women, in the context of the recent multi-donor initiative, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP).

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19/ The JCGP includes IFAD, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and WFP, the major funding agencies within the United Nations system, with IFAD, unlike the other agencies, being a specialized agency providing loans. UNHCR and UNDCP have observer status in the JCGP.

20/ One example for such cooperation was a provincial-level workshop in Zambia in 1992, jointly sponsored by FAO and IFAD to identify and encourage the use of traditional foods in promoting HFS.