About the Food Systems Dashboard

What is the Food Systems Dashboard?

Dashboards are useful tools that visualize key information and facilitate understanding for complex systems. They present data from multiple, diverse sources into simple, visually appealing graphics. This allows stakeholders to set priorities for action and track progress to see if policies or other interventions are working. In recent years, the public health and nutrition communities have used dashboards to track the progress of health goals and interventions, including the Sustainable Development Goals. To our knowledge, the Food Systems Dashboard is the first that brings together national- and subnational-level data across all components of the food system and provides deeper analysis and guidance on how to use this data in meaningful ways.

The Food Systems Dashboard brings together data from multiple and diverse sources and presents them in simple, visually appealing graphics that make it easier to visualize key information and understand complex food systems. By doing so, it enables stakeholders - including government decision-makers as well as nutrition and public health communities and other food systems actors – with the insights they need to set priorities, design effective actions and track progress. This allows users to quickly identify which policies and interventions are working, where challenges persist, and what gaps must be addressed to drive meaningful and sustainable change.

What makes the Food Systems Dashboard unique is its ability to integrate national and subnational data across all components of the food system while also offering deeper analysis and practical guidance on how to translate the data into action.

The Food Systems Dashboard’s three pillars: Describe, Diagnose, Decide

Describe

The Food Systems Dashboard brings together extant data for over 300 indicators across agricultural production, food availability and affordability, diets and nutrition, livelihoods, climate, environment, resilience, and governance, as well as external drivers influencing these factors, to give users a complete view of food systems. These indicators come from global databases and are available for most countries at the national level. The Dashboard currently draws on more than 50 sources, both public and private, including United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), Euromonitor International, and cross-country project-based datasets. The Dashboard is continually being updated to include new indicators, growing from around 140 indicators when first launched in 2020 to over 300 today.

Diagnose

On the Country Diagnostics pages, a country’s performance is assessed for a curated set of 39 national-level indicators that span food supply chains, food environments, food security, nutrition and health, and environmental outcomes. For each indicator, countries are considered to be in the green, yellow (indicating a potential challenge area), or red (indicating a likely challenge area).

Decide

On the Policies and Actions page, the Dashboard includes 87 evidence-based policies and actions aimed at improving diets, nutrition, and environmental sustainability. Stakeholders can explore and prioritize these actions based on the needs of their food systems.

What are the Country Dashboards?

The Food Systems Dashboard currently provides national-level data for over 200 countries and territories, but subnational data is essential for meeting national targets and driving local food systems transformation. To meet this need, the Dashboard is working closely with governments, civil society, and academia to create Country Dashboards that present both national and sub-national data drawn from national databases and aligned with local priorities and decision-making needs.

The first Country Dashboards with subnational data and diagnostics have launched and are available in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Pakistan, covering almost one billion people. In Indonesia for example, data is available at national, province (38 provinces), and city/regency levels (98 Cities and 416 Regencies). Work is also underway on Country Dashboards in Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Mexico, and Rwanda with hopes of more countries to follow.

What is the Food Systems Countdown Initiative and How is it Related to the Food Systems Dashboard

The Food Systems Countdown Initiative is a collaboration uniting over 50 food systems experts from dozens of institutions worldwide that emerged from the United Nations Food Systems Summit to provide rigorous, science-based monitoring to support global food systems transformation. The Countdown published a monitoring framework comprising five themes: 1) Diets, nutrition, and health; 2) Environment, natural resources, and production; 3) Livelihoods, poverty, and equity; 4) Governance; and 5) Resilience. The Countdown then undertook a consultative process to select a set of key monitoring indicators across these themes, and identified 50 indicators at the global level.

The Countdown provides an annual monitoring update on these 50 indicators and additional analysis, publishing two analyses to date. The first 2023 analysis provided a baseline assessment of the 50 indicators and emphasized food system opportunities and challenges in every region and country. The second 2024 analysis presented how these 50 indicators have changed over time globally, showing progress worth celebrating with 20 indicators moving in a desirable direction. However, the analysis also showed challenges with 7 indicators worsening and 15 remaining unchanged globally. The 2024 analysis also looked at the interactions and trade-offs between the 50 indicators.

The Countdown data and analysis are available on the Dashboard. The 50 FSCI indicators are available in the Global Dashboard where they are highlighted with an FSCI tag to show their importance in food systems monitoring. They are also shown alongside an additional 300+ indicators that provide key food systems context. Countdown Country Profiles show data for the 50 indicators for each country compared to regional and income group averages. Interactions between the 50 indicators can all be explored through an interactive visualization that highlights key leverage points.

How to Navigate the Food Systems Dashboard

The Dashboard has three main sections - Global Data, Country Data, and Countdown Data.

Global Data

The Global Data section provides a deep dive into national-level data. On the Global Dashboard, each of the 300+ indicators can be visualized as map, graph, or table views. Indicators can also be compared across countries and regions and the raw data can be downloaded. Metadata, which includes information about each indicator definition and their importance to food systems, can also be found. The Country Diagnostics section provides a birds-eye view of a country’s food system, showing insights into the opportunities and challenges facing countries and their food systems. Each country page presents a curated set of diagnostics assessing food systems performance. The Policies and Actions section includes 87 policies and actions to consider to improve food systems for better nutrition, health, and environmental sustainability.

Country data

The Country Data section includes the Country Dashboards with subnational data and diagnostics. Each Country Dashboard has been co-created with country governments and other key stakeholders and includes indicators prioritized for each country’s needs based on data collected nationally.

Countdown Data

The Countdown Data section includes data and analysis from the Food Systems Countdown Initiative. The 50 Countdown indicators are available in the Global Dashboard where they are highlighted with an FSCI tag. Countdown Country Profiles show data for the 50 Countdown indicators for each country compared to regional and income group averages. Interactions between the 50 Countdown indicators can all be explored through an interactive visualization that highlights key leverage points.

How to Cite the Food Systems Dashboard

All data, maps, and other visualizations are open access and can be used freely for non-commercial purposes. Please cite as:

The Food Systems Dashboard. The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), The Columbia Climate School, Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2025. Geneva, Switzerland. https://www.foodsystemsdashboard.org. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36072/db.

Who is the Food Systems Dashboard for?

The Dashboard can be used by anyone interested or involved in the food system:

• Policymakers at the country, regional, and global levels
• National statistical agency workers
• Policy analysts in government ministries
• United Nations and non-governmental organization development practitioners
• Civil society workers
• Researchers, academics, and students
• Business leaders and entrepreneurs

Who Created the Food Systems Dashboard?

The Dashboard is led by The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, The Columbia Climate School, Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations with collaborators at many other institutions. Johns Hopkins University is a past founding partner.

The website is designed, engineered, and maintained byFriends of the Web in collaboration with the Food Systems Dashboard team. Past website design and development was done in collaboration with iTech Mission.

Core Food Systems Dashboard Team Members

Country Dashboard Team Members

Bangladesh

India

Indonesia

Ethiopia

Kenya

Mozambique

Nigeria

Pakistan

Rwanda

Past Food Systems Dashboard Team Members

Donors

We would like to thank the following organizations that have provided support:

• The Rockefeller Foundation
• The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands
• The European Union
• The government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada
• Irish Aid through the Development Cooperation and Africa Division (DCAD)
• The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA)
• International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
• Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF)
• Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
• Johns Hopkins Alliance for a Healthier World