The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and AKADEMIYA2063 recently launched a new toolkit to help governments identify and address misaligned food policies. They hope that countries can use the resource to align policies, so that progress in one area complements and strengthens momentum toward broader food systems transformation goals.
According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, transformed agrifood systems can deliver interconnected benefits for the economy, environment, society, and health. But because progress in one area can create trade-offs, they say that advancing all dimensions through an integrated systems approach is essential.
“Achieving transformative change requires making big changes that cut across multiple sectors…like health and environment and agriculture,” Stella Nordhagen, a Senior Technical Specialist at GAIN, tells Food Tank. But she says it’s far from simple, explaining that policy decisions are “often siloed, with each part of government primarily focusing on its own priorities.”
The Food Systems Policy Coherence Toolkit provides a self-diagnostic tool to help governments understand policy coherence, evaluate it, and develop actions for improvement. The toolkit aims to support countries at all stages of the transformation process. This includes nations just beginning to develop a food systems strategy, those ready for implementation, or those reporting on progress. Publicly available from GAIN’s website, the toolkit includes a user manual, scoring guidelines, and country examples to support effective implementation.
The tool has two parts. The first helps evaluate whether there are structures and mechanisms already in place to support policy coherence, such as cross-sectoral coordination between ministries. The second guides the analysis of current policies to identify synergies and conflicts across six key food system goals: zero hunger, climate resilience, healthy diets, reduced food waste, fair incomes, and women’s empowerment.
This ambition “requires more than isolated efforts; it demands effective, coherent, and well-integrated policies that cut across multiple sectors,” AKADEMIYA2063 Deputy Director of the Department of Capacity and Deployment, Mahamadou Tankari, tells Food Tank.
Tankari says the toolkit collaboration with GAIN aligns well with AKADEMIYA2063’s mission to advance evidence-based policymaking toward Agenda2063—the African Union’s 50-year strategy for inclusive and sustainable development to foster growth, reduce poverty, and boost prosperity. For AKADEMIYA2063, policy alignment in the food and agriculture sectors “is foundational to the livelihoods of millions across [Africa],” he explains.
The toolkit helps governments diagnose misalignments and encourages policymakers to see how their decisions impact not just their own mandates, but those of others as well. According to Nordhagen, raising awareness around policy coherence is “a key first step.”
GAIN and AKADEMIYA2063 piloted the resource in Nigeria, before expanding to eight more countries: Bangladesh, Benin, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Pakistan, and Tanzania. A key lesson stood out to Nordhagen and Tankari from this process—local engagement is critical.
“Local voices and experiences were central to the development and refinement of the Food Systems Policy Coherence Toolkit,” Tankari tells Food Tank.
Through interviews and workshops, local stakeholders contributed to the tool’s development to ensure that findings are credible and relevant. This participatory approach helps prioritize issues and tailor recommendations to fit existing structures, fostering ownership and collaboration across agencies.
National stakeholders, including government and technical experts, were also closely involved in the testing providing feedback on the toolkit’s structure and content. Tankari shares, “this input was not treated as peripheral; rather, it was carefully reviewed and directly integrated into the toolkit’s revisions.”
The final version of the tool is designed to provide actionable recommendations that support users at all stages of food system transformation. It also “provides a step-by-step way for governments to check how well different policies work together and improve coordination,” Tankari adds.
The toolkit also helps governments assess key performance indicators, responsibilities, and stakeholder roles in monitoring. During piloting, it also encouraged cross-sector cooperation and helped officials find policy interconnections. In Kenya and Tanzania, for example, the resource helped government actors acknowledge the need to strengthen coordination across national, local, and regional levels.
As countries share their own success stories, Nordhagen hopes it will inspire peer-to-peer learning. And while the toolkit was initially designed for low- and middle-income countries, she says there’s growing interest in adapting it for use at regional or decentralized levels. This means that there are applications for higher income countries as well, Nordhagen explains.
To ensure the toolkit remains useful in the long term, Tankari says, “AKADEMIYA2063 will plan to offer support like training, hands-on help, and regular communication with people involved in food policy.” He believes that tool should be used regularly when planning and reviewing policies. “By doing this, it can help leaders make decisions based on solid information, encourage teamwork between different sectors, and create lasting positive change in food systems across Africa.”
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Photo courtesy of Omotayo Tajudeen, Unsplash
