Comments on the Draft scope of the HLPE Report on “Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition”
UN Nutrition (https://www.unnutrition.org/) will serve as a new UN inter-agency for developing more integrated efforts to end malnutrition in all its forms. HLPE’s work on data collection and analysis should be done in consultation with UNN. HLPE should support action not only at the global and national levels but also at sub-national levels.
The goals could be grand and ambitious like the Sustainable Development Goals or modest goals such as ensuring that children regularly get school meals they are supposed to get. Data systems could be developed to support steady incremental steering toward the achievement of well-articulated goals. In this approach, the monitoring of what is happening currently could be linked directly to quick changes in the remedial action, making mid-course corrections on the path to the goal. To illustrate, I am looking at ways in which wasting and stunting in young children could be driven down with monthly adjustments to their diets and other relevant factors such as sanitation. This could involve several different levels of governance working together, using a shared data system devoted to the challenge of reducing wasting and stunting. The data could be updated frequently, guiding incremental adjustments to steer the process toward achievement of the goal.
George Kent
George Kent