Maximising nutrition: from theory to practice using a stepwise impact pathway approach Integrating nutrition into agrifoodsystems: from theory to practice

Background and objectives: Malnutrition is exacerbated by gaps within the agrifood system. To address these gaps, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN together with World Vision, Action Contre la Faim and twelve country teams in Sub-Saharan Africa developed a participatory methodology that engages key actors across agrifood systems – from eco-systems to the production, processing, retail, consumption and disposal of food. The Impact Pathway (IP) approach focuses on the most vulnerable communities that are largely dependent on natural resources to sustain their economy, basic services, food security and dietary needs. Methods: The IP approach involves a consultative stepwise methodology that solicits inputs from key stakeholders such as project formulators, target communities, policymakers, private businesses, and academia. In alignment with the high level panel of experts food systems framework, the scope of the Impact Pathways approach is tailored to a sub-sector, region, local community or food commodity. The scope, or problem statement, is used to form a Theory of Change, which is a diagram that gives a comprehensive description of why and how a desired change is expected. From this Theory of Change, several Impact Pathways with their own specific assumptions, trade-offs and gaps are drawn through a participative process. Activities and related information are mapped along the Impact Pathways to help decision makers with prioritizing and planning. In addition, external drivers that define cross-cutting issues are examined throughout the results chain. Results: Implementing this approach provides decision makers with an accessible, common approach to monitoring ongoing field interventions, identifying gaps, establishing milestones and supporting final evaluations. It allows key entry points to be identified and optimised to best improve dietary diversity for key stakeholders within agrifood systems. Conclusions: An agrifood systems approach allows key stakeholders to identify entry points for intervention without losing sight of how their collective work can lead to improved availability, accessibility and consumption of healthy diets. The involvement of vulnerable groups is critical to ensuring that opportunities and potential risks are adequately considered in the design and implementation of policies and programmes aimed at improving their health and socio-economic outcomes and increasing their resilience to environmental shocks and stresse