USAID and Its NGO Partners are working together to test a nutritional impact assessment tool, reports IRIN. According to Michael Zeilinger, head of the nutrition division with USAID’s Office of Health, Infectious Disease and Nutrition, this tool “would be a way for organizations designing or reviewing agricultural programs to mitigate any risks or potential negative effects on nutrition”. Zeilingre recently talked to IRIN about this “nutritional impact assessment tool”.
“’As we start to design major agriculture programs around value chains and increasing production (such as Feed the Future and Global Agriculture and Food Security Program), we should really remember that there are some practices in agriculture that may have potential negative effects on nutrition, and this is just to make sure that they’re thought through,” said Zeilinger
According to Charlotte Dufour, food security, nutrition and livelihoods officer with the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) nutrition and consumer protection division, measuring the impact of agricultural programs can be complicated, because they can have positive and negative effects within one community.
“Maximizing the nutritional impact of agricultural programs requires a good analysis of local livelihoods and causes of malnutrition by population group,” said Dufour, adding that for now the… tool does not yet provide for such analysis.
