Improving dietary and health data for decision-making in agriculture and nutrition actions in Africa : policy brief

Traditional methods used to collect health and nutrition data depend on enumerators or use of health facilities. These approaches suffer from accessibility bias, are costly, and the infrequent data collection intervals under heterogeneous and fast-moving conditions may not accurately track changes in nutritional status and household coping mechanisms that occur over short periods of time. These can have serious implications on how practitioners and policy makers judge the impacts of shocks and of interventions aimed at improving household welfare. Furthermore, such data are often of little direct use to households themselves as they do not receive feedback on their own status or trajectories. This data inadequacy will continue to negatively impact the efforts of governments and development practitioners to effectively programme and monitor the performance of nutrition and health interventions, and ultimately, achievement of national and global nutrition and health targets