Food and nutrition are cornerstones that affect and define the health of all people, rich and poor. The right to food is one of the most consistently mentioned items in international human rights documents

1. FOOD AND NUTRITION SECURITY: DIMENSIONS,
INDICATORS AND FRAMEWORK FOR ACHIEVING
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL AT NATIONAL AND
SUB NATIONAL LEVELS
BY
SOETAN, Olatunbosun Jonathan
Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development
Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun state, Nigeria

2. Introduction
 Food and nutrition are cornerstones that affect and define the
health of all people, rich and poor. The right to food is one of the
most consistently mentioned items in international human
rights documents
 Food and nutrition security is essential to ensure adequate
nutrition, prevent hunger and malnutrition, hence, its inclusion
as part of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2
 Strong interdependencies exist between food security, nutrition
and many other parts of a broad sustainable development
agenda – inclusive economic growth, population dynamics,
decent employment, social protection, energy, water, health,
sanitation, natural resource management and protecting
ecosystems

3. Introduction contd…
 According to World Health Organization (WHO 2012) food and
nutrition security is defined as a condition when “all people, at
all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient,
safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food
preferences for an active and healthy life”
 According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) (2008),
food and nutrition security is necessary to maintain an optimal
nutritional status, and core to its definition is the requirement
for nutritious food, which refers not only to sufficient quantities
of food (in terms of calories), but also to sufficient quality (in
terms of variety and micronutrient content)

4. Dimensions of food security
 Napoli, De Muro and Mazziota (2011) stated that there are four
important interlinked components imbedded in the definition of
food and nutrition security
 The first component as noted by Napoli et.al., (2011) relates to
food availability which means that food is physically present
because it has been grown, manufactured, imported and/or
transported
 The second aspect concerns food access which is the way
different people can obtain the available food
 The third component relates to food utilization which is the way
people use the food
 Finally the fourth component relates to stability and
sustainability over time. Any of the above-mentioned factors
can cause food insecurity

5. Dimensions and pillars of food security

6. Stakeholders and user’s guide: classification of the indicators use in
measuring food and nutrition security
1) National indicators use observations that are initially made only at
the country level, typically because they use national accounts, trade
data, or other information that is collected administratively for the
population as a whole. Analysts may then infer the share attributable
to a subset of the population, but the original data source is a per-
capita average. A typical example is per-capita Gross Domestic
Product from national accounts, or total exports and imports from
trade data
2) Market indicators use observations that are initially made at the level
of a marketplace. This could be an average over many transactions, or a
single representative transaction in the market. The actual agents
involved are typically unknown or anonymous, and may be located
anywhere. A typical example is a market price, the total volume of sales,
or the fraction of food sold that has been fortified

7. Stakeholders and user’s guide: classification of the indicators use in
measuring food and nutrition security
3) Household or individual recall data are collected through
responses to verbal or written questions. Household data refers to
questions at the level of a family or other unit eating from a
common cooking pot. Individual data refers to a specific person,
who may or may not be the respondent. For example, a child’s
dietary intake is typically provided by the mother or other caregiver
4) Anthropometric indicators are based on external measurement
of body size, such as heights (or lengths) and weights. These are
typically combined with other information such as age and sex, and
compared to reference populations to determine a group’s
prevalence of stunting, wasting, overweight or obesity. Other
widely used measurements include waist circumference or waist-
to-hip ratio (to indicate abdominal adiposity) and mid-upper arm
circumference (to track underweight)

8. Stakeholders and user’s guide: classification of the indicators use in
measuring food and nutrition security
5) Prevalence of undernourishment (PoU) and related measures are
constructed by combining data observed at the national, household and
individual scale. For the PoU, country-level estimates of food production,
trade and other uses are used to infer total national food supply.
Inequality in access and distribution of food is measured using household
surveys, and compared to the population’s dietary energy needs based on
their age, sex and height
6) Biomarkers and clinical data are health indicators based on tests of
physical samples or information from clinical service providers. Samples
may be collected during home visits, at mobile field sites such as village
health days, or in clinics and health facilities. For example, blood tests are
used to determine anemia and vitamin A status, stool samples reveal
presence of intestinal parasites, and maternity service records reveal the
prevalence of low birth weight.

9. Stakeholders and user’s guide: classification of the indicators use in
measuring food and nutrition security
7) Breastfeeding and sanitation measures are obtained from
interviews and direct observation, often collected alongside other
household and individual recall data but using different survey
instruments due to their distinct unit of observation. For example,
breastfeeding indicators are specific to a mother-child dyad, and
sanitation indicators often refer to the shared environment of each
household.
8) Composite indexes and multidimensional measures are created
by combining different concepts into a single ranking or
classification. The weights assigned to each element reflect its
relative importance for users of the index, which is typically
designed for advocacy purposes rather than operational use

10. Causal pathways among targets in SDGs 2 and other development goals
 The figure 2-3 illustrates how the different targets specified as part
of SDG2, which calls for all UN member countries to "end hunger,
achieve food security and improve nutrition, and promote
sustainable agriculture”
 SGD2 is specifically about food security and nutrition, but the
targets specified under other SDGs are also important for success
in this domain, including especially progress on climate change
(SDG13), water and sanitation (SDG6) and empowerment of
women (SDG5)
 The inter-relationships of SDG2 with these other goals is illustrated
below, showing how each type of indicator assessed in this
document relates to the different goals

11. Causal pathways among targets in SDGs 2

12. Causal pathways among targets in SDGs 2 and other development goals

13. Conclusion and recommendations
The paper concluded that Strong interdependencies exist between
food security, nutrition and many other parts of a broad sustainable
development agenda – inclusive economic growth, population
dynamics, decent employment, social protection, energy, water,
health, sanitation, natural resource management and protecting
ecosystems
It was therefore recommended that relevant stakeholders in health,
nutrition, agriculture, donor agencies, Ministries, Departments, and
Agencies (MDA’s) and policy makers to develop a framework and
policies that will solve the problem of food insecurity and poor
nutrition especially among landless farmers that are most vulnerable
to food and nutrition insecurity

14. References
• Burchi, F., J. Fanzo & E. Frison (2011). The role of food and nutrition
system approaches in tackling hidden hunger. International Journal of
Environmental Research and Public Health, 8(2), 358-373
• Cafiero, C. and Gennari, P. (2015). The relevance of “new metrics” for
the evaluation of SDG2- data revolution and innovative approaches for
assessing human wellbeing. FAO Statistics Division. Rome, 17 November
2015. https://www.ifad.org/documents/10180/eb7ee96e-9d18-4966-
929c-2807c91ba83a
• Food and Agricultural Organization. (2008). Food security information
for action. Practical guides. Rome: EC - FAO Food Security Programme.
• Food and Agriculture Organization. (2017). Food Security and Nutrition
Situation in Sahel and West Africa. Retrieved
fromreliefweb.int/report/Nigeria/food-security-and-nutrition-situation-
in-sahel-and-west-africa-current-march-may-2017

15. Appreciation
THANK
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