Evaluation of the Information on Nutrition, Food Security and Resilience for Decision Making (INFORMED) Programme

The Information for Nutrition, Food Security and Resilience Decision Making (INFORMED) programme, implemented by FAO from 2015 to 2019, aimed to “improve the availability of regular, timely and early warning information as well as evidence-based analysis regarding the food security, nutrition and resilience situation for decision-making”.

The evaluation revealed that the programme’s increased focused on Early Warning for Early Action (EWEA) was very relevant to fill existing gaps with a comparative advantage for FAO in slow onset and food chain crises contexts. Promoting the use of pre-agreed plans and pre-identified anticipatory actions, the programme effectively improved risk analysis and decision making, including through the Global Report on Food Crises, and increased access to appropriate financing instruments, while the EWEA country toolkit initial positive spinoffs remain to be built on.

Besides, whereas improving the quality and availability of food and nutrition statistics remains a high need, the promotion of a resilience index measurement and analysis (RIMA) methodology, did fulfil a gap. Despite its relevance and efforts to simplify the tool, the usability of RIMA is not clear, and the evaluation recommended clarifying what can be realistic intended uses of RIMA and focusing it on the specific uses for which is has potential, within a broader and more qualitative approach to resilience analysis. The evaluation also insisted on the need to invest in a knowledge management function dedicated to capturing and disseminating lessons on the effectiveness of EWEA and resilience interventions.