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ICCO and Food Security

Programs in operation

FNS programs are implemented in the following 18 countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, DRC, South Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, South Africa, Madagascar, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Myanmar. In the Andes a regional program is implemented, covering Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and Ecuador. With the 2011-2015 MFS support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs ICCO teams up with over 50 local development organizations with the aim to support and strengthen over 2100 community groups to improve the food and nutrition security of 280.000 rural households in abovementioned countries. In addition ICCO counts with support from the European Commission and Dutch Embassies for FNS programs in a number of countries, including Bangladesh (reaching out to 40.000 ultra poor women headed households), South Sudan (1.300 poor Households), Ethiopia (11.500 rural Households) and Myanmar (83.800 displaced persons)

Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning

The outcomes and impact of different sets of interventions is monitored and evaluated. In addition the systematization and sharing of experiences and lessons learned within and between (national) program coalitions and ICCO program officers is promoted. Through face-to-face meetings and technical backstopping, lessons learned and new insights are used for adaptations and further development of policies and strategies. ICCO applies the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS). This FAO recommended, household-level survey instrument assesses whether households have experienced problems with accessing food access during the last 30 days. ICCO uses the HFIAS for: Establishing baselines at the onset of programs and observing the impact of its interventions and on food security. At a smaller scale the Dietary Diversity Scale is used to evaluate FNS interventions at household level (measuring access to food) and individual level (measuring quality of diets). This is a multi-functional nutrition sensitive indicator to be used for measuring impact as well as identifying entry points for demand creation and behavioral change.

Strategic Partnerships

In the area of FNS, ICCO cooperates with a number of strategic partners as described below:

In collaboration with AKVO/FLOW, registration and centralization of research data is done by using mobile phones and a web based portal, this innovative approach provides for more viable data from the field and additional possibilities towards its use and related learning.

With BoP Inc and TNO, we work on FNS related inclusive innovation trajectories, which provides the opportunity to generate, test and validate new approaches and the potential for leveraging and scaling up. An example includes the Flying Food project. It began as an ‘out of the box’ idea to combine Dutch expertise on rearing insects with traditional African habits to consume insects gathered from the wild, establishing local insect rearing units in Kenya. Currently the Dutch Ministry of Cooperation supports a multi-annual project to establish an inclusive value chain on crickets for consumption in Kenya and Uganda, including 4.000 small farmers, half of which being women. A next common initiative forms the promotion of good feeding practices for infant and young children, adolescent girls and pregnant and lactating women, combining nutrition education and social marketing strategies towards behavioral change.

With The Amsterdam Initiative against Malnutrition (AIM), a public-private partnership, with among others WUR/CDI, Unilver, DSM, RAbobank and Rijkzwaan to improve dietary diversity of 7,5 million people and train 35.000 people to produce nutritious foods and to reach 65 million by behavioral change campaigns. Examples of activities are: improved vegetable production (with Rijkzwaan), fortification of dairy (with DSM), rural retail hubs (with Spar) and financial services (with Rabo). AIM is supported for 11 million by the the Ministry for Development Cooperation. In addition we maintain working relations with staff from the Royal Tropical Institute, FAO and UNICEF.

ICCO Food & Nutrition Security Expertise

At the global level, ICCO-cooperation provides a multidisciplinary team: food security and nutrition specialists planning, monitoring and evaluation expert capacity building and organizational development expert These experts work closely with regional program officers, who support and maintain contact with a wide range of partner coalitions in 14 different countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Based on the above described approach, track record, network and multi-disciplinary team the following FNS related services can be provided: technical backstopping for elaboration of FNS related theory of change, including maternal and child feeding practices and care; technical backstopping for design of contextualized approach/intervention strategies towards improved feeding and care practices for specific target groups, including behavior change; draft mechanism for monitoring, evaluation and learning of FNS related interventions facilitate linkages with international and national FNS policy and research institutes, leveraging intervention strategies and impact. Systematize experiences, lessons learned and ‘feed’ these back into project planning and implementation process.