R4D is developing guidance for the MCC to take a nutrition-smart approach to investments in economic development.
The Challenge
Nutrition plays a central role in health, human capital development, and long-term poverty reduction and nutrition interventions can be cost-effective ways to contribute to inclusive economic growth and improved health outcomes. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is an independent U.S. foreign assistance agency that seeks to reduce poverty through economic growth by providing time-limited grants (‘compacts’) to eligible countries to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.
When developing compacts, MCC identifies the most significant binding constraints to the partner country’s economic growth, then evaluates investments that will promote economic growth and significantly reduce poverty by estimating the economic rate of return. To make informed decisions with limited resources, MCC wants to ensure the organization’s current modeling methods utilize up-to-date tools and approaches to capture nutrition benefits and consider how nutrition-related interventions can help address the identified constraints to economic growth and poverty reduction.
The Opportunity
To leverage the widespread benefits of nutrition interventions in their work, MCC previously worked with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and co-chaired the development of the U.S. Government Global Nutrition Coordination Plan 2021–2026 (2021). Continuing to build on its work toward nutrition inclusion, MCC is now pursuing a tailored suite of resources to advocate for the consideration of nutrition investments within the compact development process and improve the measurement of nutrition benefits.
Our Work
R4D will provide technical guidance, evidence, and analytical tools to the MCC to support the design and implementation of their nutrition investments across the phases of compact development and implementation. Through an iterative approach that includes consultations with key stakeholders and technical experts, the guide will:
- Build on publicly available resources to identify nutrition-related activities with the best return on investments; and
- Refer to existing tools to measure and model nutrition-related benefits from nutrition-sensitive interventions that are intentionally designed to improve food systems and health and nutrition outcomes.
This project draws on R4D’s experience working in the project consortium on Strengthening Economic Evaluations for Multisectoral Strategies for Nutrition (SEEMS-Nutrition) and on the Global Investment Framework for Nutrition (undertaken in collaboration with the World Bank and Power of Nutrition) as well as a portfolio of activities at the global and national level on the development of processes, approaches, tools, and frameworks related to different aspects of system strengthening for nutrition.
