Attachments
Summary of key findings
Background
Malnutrition and food insecurity remain substantial global challenges, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. These challenges have reached crisis levels in recent years, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, conflict (particularly the war in Ukraine), and the effects of climate change on food systems. Addressing these challenges will require improvements to global food systems, encompassing food production, processing, marketing, and consumption. Making such improvements will in turn require policy making and programming decisions that are informed by the best available evidence.
In February 2020, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) began developing an evidence and gap map (E&GM), collecting all available impact evaluations and systematic reviews of impact evaluations measuring the effects of food systems interventions on food security and nutrition in low- and middle-income countries (L&MICs). 3ie was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) through its “Knowledge for Nutrition” programme. The Innovative Methods and Metrics for Agriculture and Nutrition Actions (IMMANA) research group supported this project by contributing significant staff time, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO).
3ie developed the map into a living evidence product, updating it approximately every four months with the newest literature in the field. This report summarises the findings of the E&GM, including the period covered by the original map, but with special attention to whether and how the evidence base has evolved since 2021 as we performed regular updates.