Aid for nutrition. Can investments to scale up nutrition actions be accurately tracked ?

This report assesses nutrition funding by major bilateral, multilateral and private donors from 2005 to 2009. Through the OECD's Creditor Reporting System (CRS) database, the paper analyses the transparency, quantity (adequacy) and quality (effectiveness) of aid for nutrition. It raises key questions on actions needed to address undernutrition: Is enough money being invested in the right interventions to tackle undernutrition ? Is the money being invested at the right time ? Are the interventions reaching those most affected by undernutrition ?
The report provides recommendations on what can be done to scale up the response to undernutrition effectively. Individual donor analyses were carried out for 10 major donors: Canada, the EU, the UK, Ireland, the United States, Spain, Sweden, Norway, UNICEF and the World Bank (the IDA). For 2009, the study presents a separate analysis based on additional data for some donors (ECHO, France and the Bill & Melinda Gates Fondation) to generate an estimate on nutrition funding. The report found that poor reporting to the OECd's CRS database by key donors (such as the EU, France, WFP, FAO, WHO) limits the effectiveness of the CRS as a single source of data for monitoring donor aid activities. This also results in difficult tracking of ODA in nutrition, thus hindering donors' transparency and accountability. The report found that investments in nutrition are currently inadequate, with the majority of funding going towards direct nutrition interventions in response to humanitarian crises reflecting the short term nature of aid for nutrition. Furthermore, nutrition aid is not always directed to countries with the highest burdens of undernutrition, and many donors fail to honour commitments. Based on their findings, Action Against Hunger recommends that donors must commit to aid transparency principles by improving reporting practices, donors and governments must increase their investments in direct or nutrition-specific interventions, the treatment and prevention of undernutrition must also be targeted in non-emergency situations, and an annual review of investments in nutrition must be done to keep the paucity of funding for nutrition high on the political agenda.

 ACF International - July 2012