FAO reports that earlier this month, the United Nations Statistical Commission approved the creation of a new statistical domain on food security and nutrition statistics, marking the first time the highest body for setting standards in the international statistical system incorporates these subjects alongside its existing focus on national accounts, population statistics, agriculture, big data, and other themes.

Food security and nutrition targeted

The decision will support the ongoing efforts of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the World Health Organization (WHO) in developing and harmonizing data on food security and nutrition (FSN) and statistics.

With the creation of this new data domain, the three organizations will appear before the UN Statistical Commission every two years to report on the status of FSN data and to support the Commission in setting and implementing a common agenda to advance work in the field in the coming years.

While these three agencies, along with other UN organizations, member countries, and various other institutions, have long worked with and on data on food security and nutrition, the world can benefit from additional efforts to strengthen existing definitions, methods, and recommendations and to address significant gaps with member states to properly assess the state of food security and nutrition at national, regional, and global levels.

"This is a very important step in strengthening a more systemic approach and commitment to food security and nutrition, which are essential to the mandates of FAO, UNICEF, and WHO. It creates a strong space for dialogue, technical discussions, and debates on the data needed for effective policies and actions among country members and UN agencies," said José Rosero Moncayo, Chief Statistician at FAO and Director of the Statistics Division, Joao Pedro Azevedo, Chief Statistician at UNICEF, and Stephen Mac Feely, Director of Data and Analytics at WHO, in a joint statement.

The United Nations Statistical Commission is an intergovernmental body that brings together the heads of national statistical authorities of all UN members. It is responsible for setting statistical standards, developing internationally agreed concepts and methods, and implementing them at the national and international levels.

The decision to add an autonomous domain of food security and nutrition was driven by the three agencies (FAO, UNICEF, and WHO) and by policy recommendations approved by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the most important inclusive international and intergovernmental platform for stakeholders to work together to ensure food security and nutrition for all.

How does it work?

Efforts to collect data on food security and nutrition have long been led by FAO, UNICEF, and WHO, along with a proliferation of other regional and non-governmental initiatives, highlighting the need for validation and harmonization of measurement methods.

Broadly speaking, FAO has long provided authoritative data on food insecurity, UNICEF on key nutrition outcomes such as child stunting and child diets, and WHO on topics related to healthy diets and nutrition.

The implementation of today's decision will stimulate stronger discussion between the UN and its members on topics such as closing existing data gaps on food security and nutrition data, strengthening member states' statistical capacities to collect FSN data, promoting the use of existing data for policy generation and evaluation, and harmonizing measurement methods.

It will also provide a platform for mobilizing resources from international donors for these efforts. FAO, WHO, and UNICEF, in collaboration with member countries, will design and implement a work agenda aimed at developing and documenting best practices and guidelines on statistical concepts, methods, and standards for food security and nutrition statistics. (Photo: Freepik)