A new AidData paper and podcast explains the complex nature of nutrition aid tracking

On 6 August 2015, AidData shared a podcast about tracking nutrition aid and how the same method could be applied to womens empowerment. The 13 minute podcast was the sixth episode of a “Deeper than data” summer podcast series by AidData.

AidData is a research and innovation lab that seeks to improve development outcomes by making development finance data more accessible and actionable. Their podcast explains how nutrition and womens empowerment are complex multi-sectoral issues. Due to the cross-sector nature of nutrition and womens empowerment programmes and initiatives, the funding that goes towards these issues is difficult to track.

During the podcast, Scott Ickes, a Professor of International Nutrition and Epidemiology in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at the College of William & Mary, stresses the need to better understand and track investments across international development. This knowledge will help decision makers to better plan investments for nutrition and womens empowerment, to achieve the international development goals which are broad and multi-faceted.

He shares how the new paper, “Building a Stronger System for Tracking Nutrition Sensitive Spending: A Methodology and Estimate of Global Spending for Nutrition Sensitive Foreign Aid,” tracks nutrition aid using a new methodology to more accurately and comprehensively capture nutrition sensitive investments. Nutrition investment in 2010, was identified as $79.4 million when the official development assistance sector classifications, in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Creditor Reporting System database, was used. The new approach led to the identification of $1.8 billion of funding that was nutrition sensitive.

Read the supporting article: AidData

Download the AidData Working Paper: “Building a Stronger System for Tracking Nutrition Sensitive Spending: A Methodology and Estimate of Global Spending for Nutrition Sensitive Foreign Aid,”

Read an opinion piece by Devex senior report Jenny Lei Ravelo: “A novel method of tracking nutrition sensitive spending”

From the working Paper – Figure 3: Category 2 – Global totals of 2010 nutrition sensitive spending by recipient, stunting prevalence, and stunting population