The COVID-19 epidemic, which shocked the entire world, had an impact on organizations and institutions that supported the delivery of nutrition programs at all levels. To quickly respond to the needs of the nutrition community, the Agile Core Team for Nutrition Monitoring (ACT-NM) group, a collaboration between UNICEF, USAID, WHO, and USAID Advancing Nutrition, developed an analytical framework for examining pathways for the impact of the COVD-19 pandemic on critical nutrition outcomes.
In addition to tracking progress toward the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) aim of eradicating all forms of malnutrition, the comprehensive analytical framework incorporates the six maternal, newborn, and early child nutrition targets set by WHA.
By linking the overarching categories of food, health, social protection, education, water, and sanitation to outcomes and impacts of COVID-19 on nutrition, the Analytical Framework is a useful tool that enables users to construct context-specific pathways to study the impact of COVID-19 and upcoming shocks.
Analytical framework
The comprehensive analytical framework created by the ACT-NM includes the six maternal, infant, and young child nutrition targets endorsed by the World Health Organization (WHA) as well as the outcomes tracked toward the elimination of malnutrition in all its forms, one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets. An analytical framework is a helpful tool that enables users to create context-specific paths to investigate the impact of upcoming catastrophes by connecting the overall categories of food, health, social protection, education, water, and sanitation to the results and consequences of COVID-19 on nutrition. This tool offers policymakers and program personnel a potent and flexible way to strengthen nutrition programs in the wake of COVID-19 and upcoming shocks.
The analytical approach divides a variety of variables into numerous COVID-19 and nutrition-related categories and subcategories. It has a condensed organizational structure with five overarching categories and a list of enabling, underlying, and immediate drivers that influence outcomes and impact. Relevant elements fall into the following subcategories within each category of determinants: contextual (enabling determinants), systemic (underlying determinants), behavioral and nutritional status, and others (immediate determinants). The framework’s design also takes into account the broader environmental backdrop and the broad impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the various categories and subcategories. The framework also acknowledges the significance of growing inequality and its impact on each element of the analytical framework.
