Data collection and analysis tools for food security and nutrition. Towards enhancing effective, inclusive, evidence-informed, decision making

Summary

Throughout the world, high-quality, timely and relevant data are key to inform actions that promote better access to food and improved nutrition.
• Despite the abundant and growing availability of data and information relevant to food security and nutrition, often policymakers are not aware of the existence and relevance of such data or do not use them appropriately, due to challenges at each step of the data cycle, which includes: defining priorities and data needs; reviewing, consolidating, collecting and curating data; analyzing the data using appropriate tools; translating data into relevant insights to be disseminated and discussed; and, finally, using data for decision-making.
• Fundamental data gaps still exist to correctly guide action and inform policymaking, especially in terms of timely and sufficiently granular data on people’s ability to locally produce and access food, on their actual food and nutrient consumption, and on their nutritional status. Increased and sustained financial investment is needed to overcome these gaps.
• Several other constraints limit the effectiveness of data-informed policy action, especially in low-resource countries. Key among them is the low level of data literacy and analysis skills (for both qualitative and quantitative data) on the part of data and information users at all levels – from data collectors and analysts, to decision-makers, and to the people, as the ultimate beneficiaries of food security and nutrition policies.
• The complexity of the system of public and private actors and institutions involved in food security and nutrition data, coupled with the rapidly changing characteristics of today’s data ecosystems due to the digital revolution and the pervasiveness of the internet, brings to centre stage the need for global coordination to improve data governance. Particularly urgent is the need to reach agreement on the nature of FSN data and information as a public good, and, on that basis, to establish a global legal framework that allows for the broadest possible circulation of relevant information, while preserving the rights of the people to whom the data ultimately belongs.