1. OPTIMA NUTRITION: A NEW TOOL
Introduction to the Session
Ellen G. Piwoz
November 28, 2018

2. Last updated: December 11, 2018 © Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | 2
SESSION OVERVIEW
16:30 Context setting Dr. Ellen Piwoz
16:40 Introduction to Optima Nutrition Dr. Meera Shekar
17:00 Bangladesh reflections Dr. Md. M. Islam Bulbul
17:10 WHO reflections Dr. Francesco Branca
17:20 DFID reflections Dr. Abigail Perry
17:30 Audience Q&A

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In 2012 the World Health Assembly
Resolution 65.6 endorsed a
Comprehensive Implementation Plan on
Maternal, Infant and Young Child
Nutrition (1), which specified a set of six
global nutrition targets (2) that by 2025
aim to…

4. Last updated: December 11, 2018 © Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | 4
THIS GAVE RISE TO…
http://www.who.int/nutrition/trackingtool/en

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… & THE FIRST EVER GLOBAL INVESTMENT FRAMEWORK FOR NUTRITION
Global Targets (WHA/SDG)
• How much it will cost?
• What impact will come with this investment?
• Nutrition outcomes
• Health lives saved
• Economic benefits
• How can it be financed?
• How to use this information to galvanize
national political commitment?
• How can we maximize return on
investment?

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• Optima Nutrition was developed to translate the Global Investment
Framework into a country facing decision-support tool
• Optima Nutrition has two main uses:
• Optimising investment for best health outcomes
• Projecting future scenarios: estimating the impact of different funding scenarios
• The model has secondary uses for:
• Assessing the impact of interventions on multiple malnutrition conditions:
- Stunting in children
- Wasting in children
- Anaemia in children and women of reproductive age
- Child and maternal mortality
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WHY OPTIMA NUTRITION?

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• How can a fixed budget be “optimally” allocated across interventions?
• If additional funding were available:
- which interventions should be prioritised and why?
- which geographical regions should be prioritised? (and which interventions in these regions)
• Target setting:
- What would reasonable nutrition targets be?
- If intervention coverage targets are met, what impact might this lead to?
- How close is a country likely to get to their existing nutrition targets?
- What is the minimum funding required to meet the nutrition targets?
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SOME QUESTIONS THAT OPTIMA CAN ANSWER

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• The model is not a costing tool: it includes unit costs and some marginal cost assumptions
but the user needs to decide how to model costs
• The model can not estimate impacts for interventions for which we do not have an
agreed upon evidence base: examples include estimates for interventions to improve diet
quality, or to improve agricultural policies and practices
◦ It does identify research gaps and can facilitate conversations on these issues
• And it does not include broader reproductive and maternal health interventions
• The model does not adjust for secular changes over time or intergenerational effects in
its future projections
◦ For example it does not incorporate changes in poverty due to changes in birth rates
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….AND SOME QUESTIONS THAT IT CANNOT (YET) ANSWER

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A nutrition modeling consortium has been formed to advance and align tools and help end users
understand and use them
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OPTIMA IS ONE OF SEVERAL TOOLS TO FACILITATE NUTRITION
DECISION MAKING

10. THANK YOU