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. However, the effectiveness of dashboards can be limited if they only provide data without any deeper analysis. 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 (FSD) is the first that collects country-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’s three pillars: Describe, Diagnose, Decide

Describe

The Food Systems Dashboard brings together extant data for over 225 indicators to give users a complete view of food systems, including their drivers, components, and outcomes. These indicators come from over 40 sources, both public and private, including United Nations agencies, the World Bank, the Consultative Group for International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), Euromonitor, and cross-country project-based datasets. The FSD is continually being updated to include new indicators, growing from around 140 indicators when first launched in 2020 to over 225 today.

Diagnose

On the Country Profiles, a country’s performance is assessed for 39 diagnostic indicators that span food supply chains, food environments, nutrition and health outcomes, 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

The FSD includes 87 polices 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 has national level data for 230 countries and territories, but subnational data is key for decision making and food systems transformation. To meet this need, the FSD is expanding and working closely with partners to create Country Dashboards.

The first Country Dashboards are being created in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Mozambique, and Pakistan and will have subnational data and diagnostics. In Indonesia for example, subnational data will be available for 98 Cities and 416 Regencies. These Country Dashboards will be launched in the coming months. There are also plans to create Country Dashboards in Ethiopia and India with hopes of more countries to follow.

How to Navigate the Food Systems Dashboard

The FSD has three main sections - Global Data, Country Profiles, and Policies and Actions.

The Global Data section provides a deep dive into the data. Each of the indicators can be visualized as a map, graph, or table view. Indicators can also be compared across countries and regions and the raw data can be downloaded.

The Country Profiles 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 profile presents a curated set of 52 data visualizations and 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.

How to Cite the Food Systems Dashboard

All data, maps, and other visualizations are open access and can be used freely. Please cite as:

The Food Systems Dashboard. The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN). 2023. Geneva, Switzerland. https://www.foodsystemsdashboard.org. DOI: https://doi.org/10.36072/db.

Who is the Food Systems Dashboard for?

The FSD 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 FSD is led by The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, The Columbia Climate School, and The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations with collaborators at Harvard University, City University London, The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, The International Food Policy Research Institute, Glocolearning, and The Agriculture-Nutrition Community of Practice. Johns Hopkins University is a past founding partner and past collaborators include Michigan State University and University of Michigan.

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