The strategic evaluation of WFP’s work on nutrition and addressing HIV and AIDS policies serves the dual purpose of accountability and learning, particularly the latter.
It is aimed at providing lessons and insights to help guide WFP’s positioning in relation to HIV and nutrition so as to improve operations at the country level and accountability to affected populations.
The evaluation concluded that:
- The adequacy and performance of the HIV/AIDS and nutrition policies have followed two very different pathways, with nutrition now playing a central role in the new strategic plan while the attention paid to HIV has diminished over time.
- The commitment to nutrition integration is not yet matched by an institutional architecture for its full implementation. Knowledge and capabilities needed to integrate nutrition into programmes are increasing, but the capability to integrate nutrition into WFP systems, such as those for performance measurement, supply chains, partnerships and advocacy, is lagging behind.
- With respect to performance, effectiveness is largely underpinned by WFP’s responsiveness, innovation in certain key areas and strong reputation, especially in emergency and supply chain operations. The implementation of nutrition-sensitive programming with a long-term focus has been affected by funding issues. School feeding has been identified as an entry point for linking local agriculture, food systems and nutrition interventions and as a means of addressing the double burden of malnutrition, but there has been insufficient focus on making systems more nutrition-sensitive.
- WFP has prioritized the strengthening of strategic partnerships, leading to successful outcomes, but limited investment over the longer term is compromising the ability to sustain coherent approaches to implementation, advocacy and fundraising.