The present evaluation was commissioned to assess DG ECHO’s operational capacity to fund integrated food security and nutrition operations in line with the Humanitarian Food Assistance Communication (2010) and related policies. It asks whether DG ECHO-funded food assistance supports, or perhaps hinders, attention to the relevant immediate and underlying causes of acute undernutrition. It examines whether nutrition objectives have been integrated at all stages of the food assistance programme cycle (situation analysis/assessment, causal analysis, response analysis, targeting and design, implementation and monitoring) and whether food assistance has been linked to direct nutrition interventions, where appropriate. The evaluation covers DG ECHO-funded food assistance from 2009 to 2012, taking 2012 into account where possible. The methodology has involved a document review; 137 interviews at headquarters, regional and country levels; analysis of 50 randomly selected food assistance projects; and three case studies in Bangladesh, Niger and South Sudan.
