The Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance III Project (FANTA) is a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and managed by FHI 360. The project’s main purpose is to support nutrition advocacy in developing countries using a nutrition advocacy tool, PROFILES, and country-specific nutrition costing models.
Nutrition advocacy is a platform to create movement toward greater political and social commitment for nutrition in a country. It is a planned, systematic, and deliberate process that engages national stakeholders by using a participatory and consensus-building approach towards a shared national vision for nutrition. Nutrition advocacy can support a given country at any stage along the way to providing nutrition services and reducing malnutrition.
PROFILES is a set of computer-based models that calculate consequences if malnutrition does not improve over a defined time period and the benefits of improved nutrition over the same time period. PROFILES estimates are based on reduction in the prevalence of several nutrition problems, such as iron deficiency anemia, low birth weight, vitamin A deficiency, iodine deficiency, suboptimal breastfeeding practices, and childhood stunting, underweight, and wasting. To calculate estimates, PROFILES requires current country-specific nutrition data that are identified and agreed upon in collaboration with stakeholders in country.
Nutrition Costing estimates the costs of implementing a comprehensive set of nutrition programs in a country or prioritized geographic area over a specific time period. Nutrition Costing is developed in country, considering the country-specific context, and is the result of a collaborative and participatory process during which multisectoral stakeholders engage in defining the assumptions on which Nutrition Costing is based. The estimates generated from PROFILES and Nutrition Costing are the cornerstone of this nutrition advocacy process.
FANTA has facilitated nutrition advocacy in several developing countries using PROFILES and Nutrition Costing. The project has used PROFILES with country stakeholders as a comprehensive platform for advocacy campaigns in Bangladesh, Uganda, Ghana, Ethiopia, Haiti, and Tanzania. Nutrition Costing was conducted in Guatemala, and in Bangladesh, PROFILES was complemented with Nutrition Costing to give estimates of both gains from improvements in nutrition and costs of addressing nutrition needs at scale. In each country, using a communication approach, country teams developed nutrition advocacy plans and targeted materials, and disseminated PROFILES results to target audiences, such as policymakers, parliamentarians, development partners, the media, civil society, and the private sector.
The tools provide insight for action, consensus building and a shared vision for nutrition, accountability and goal setting for investment in nutrition across the life cycle, including services along a continuum of care for the prevention and treatment of malnutrition. The project’s approach is based on a sound understanding of the current country context for nutrition, is systematic, planned, and deliberate involving key stakeholders and targeting key audiences, and is part of a collaborative effort at the country level including multiple government and nongovernment stakeholders.