Since 2015, global attention has shifted from the predominant focus on hunger of the Millennium Development Goals to a more specific focus on nutrition in the SDGs and the anchoring of nutrition policy and programming in the six World Health Assembly global targets for improving maternal, infant, and young child nutrition. In 2021, nutrition approaches continued to be galvanized by efforts to improve the evidence for nutrition action and an increasing understanding of nutrition’s critical role in disease, individual growth and development, and countries’ sustainable development. While progress has been made in reducing the rates of stunting in children, underweight women and iodine deficiency, reductions in the prevalence of wasting have been very uneven in some countries, and levels of undernutrition among women and children remain unacceptably high.
The WFP HIV and AIDS policy was approved in 2010 and was developed in the context of the UNAIDS strategic plan for 2011–2015 (“Getting to Zero”) and the WFP strategic plan for 2008–2013. Since then, there have been three global AIDS strategies and four WFP corporate strategies, but the policy has not been assessed since its approval. The HIV and AIDS policy is focused on the provision of short-term support to individuals and households while acknowledging the need for handover strategies given the chronic nature of the condition. The policy includes a logic model with three objectives: ensuring nutritional recovery and treatment success through the provision of nutrition and food assistance; mitigating the effects of AIDS on individuals and households using sustainable safety nets; and increasing government ownership of food and nutrition interventions as an essential part of national HIV/AIDS plans. This strategic evaluation had the dual purpose of meeting accountability and learning needs, with a particular focus on learning. The evaluation objectives were to assess the continued relevance of WFP’s policies on HIV/AIDS and nutrition and the effects achieved as a result of those policies, and assess the extent to which WFP has sufficient organizational readiness to meet the challenges set out in the Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016–2025) and in corporate guiding frameworks, including the strategic plan for 2022– 2025.
