Dr. Rachel Nugent Dr. Carol Levin
DCP3 Project Director Dr. Rachel Nugent and Senior Health Economist Dr. Carol Levin co-authored a chapter in the 2015 Global Nutrition Report, now avaialble online. In their chapter, "Indicators for Nutrition-Friendly and Sustainable Food Systems", Nugent and Levin made several key findings, including:
- The rise of obesity and nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases in the context of persistent undernutrition places a greater emphasis than ever on the centrality of food systems as a driver of nutrition outcomes.
- Food system indicators can be used to characterize country food systems into types.
- Developing outcome indicators for food systems can help guide policymakers toward better decisions for nutrition-friendly and sustainable food systems while also helping citizens hold their governments accountable for their policy choices. Here we propose a dashboard of 10 indicators as an example.
- Missing and poor data present a significant challenge to accountability of food systems for nutrition and sustainability.
- Decisions about improving food systems depend not only on technical considerations, but also on the political economy of food systems.
A synopsis of the full report can be found here.