As part of the Community Food and Health (CFaH) Project, we developed a methodological framework and tools for evaluating the impact of community food production initiatives and have shared these tools with international organisations.

In 2018, the CFaH team were approached, through our Pacific partners, to engage with the Innov4AgPacific, ‘Pacific-led Community Nutrition Seed Funding Project’, launched by CTA and IFAD. The aim of the project was to strengthen the capacity of Pacific Islands to develop strategies and programmes to increase access to nutritious, healthy food.

The project provided two non-government organisations, with seed funding to upscale their community food production initiatives; the Kastom Garden Association (KGA) which aims to develop the capacity of smallholder farmers and community networks for food security and livelihoods in Solomon Islands, and FRIEND which delivers a backyard garden approach for sustainable community food production in Fiji. The CFaH projects approach and tools were used to evaluate the impact of these initiatives on local nutrition and livelihoods.  We provided electronic versions of the tools for quantitative data collection (including a diet survey to assess dietary diversity and patterns, food sourcing and food insecurity), as well as training and support in data collection and data analysis.

The Innov4AgPacific project team shared their findings through a series of international webinars, at which we also presented our tools, and published a policy brief ‘Building the Evidence Base on Community Food Production Initiatives in Pacific Island Countries’. The application of the CFaH projects locally relevant, evidence-based approach, enabled the evaluation of local initiatives and provided evidence that is needed to support the attainment of policy objectives identified by the Pacific Food and Nutrition Framework, in working towards global nutrition targets.

CTA (Technical centre for agricultural and rural cooperation): https://www.cta.int/en

IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development): https://www.ifad.org/en/

Innov4AgPacific (Promoting nutritious food systems in the pacific islands): https://www.innov4agpacific.net/

KGA (Kastom Garden Association): https://kastomgaden.org/

FRIEND (Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises and Development): http://friendfiji.com/

CFaH Project https://www.ecehh.org/research/cfah-community-food-production-health/