The Food Systems Dashboard

On June 1, 2020, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the Johns Hopkins Alliance for a Healthier World launched the Food Systems Dashboard. This new online dashboard presents food system data of 230 countries and is designed to better inform policy.

The Dashboard

The Food Systems Dashboard combines data from 35 sources for all components of the food system, represented by 166 indicators, for more than 230 countries and territories. The indicators measure components, drivers, and outcomes of food systems at the country level. The indicators combine publicly available open source data, such as of FAO, the Global Burden of Disease (GBD), UNICEF and WHO, and non-public sources, including Euromonitor International. The complexity of this combined data is presented in a clear and simple way. The Dashboard will be updated as new indicators and data become available.

The Dashboard was developed by the Johns Hopkins University and GAIN, in collaboration with Harvard University, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, FAO and the Agriculture-Nutrition Community of Practice.

Features of the Dashboard

The framework for the Dashboard was adapted from the conceptual framework of the High-Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE). The framework depicts four interrelated components of food systems; food supply chains, food environments, individual factors, and consumer behavior. The framework also shows how these components impact diets and, ultimately, nutrition and health outcomes. Additionally, it depicts the drivers that push and pull food systems; climate change, globalization and trade, income growth and distribution, population growth and migration, politics and leadership, and socio-cultural context.

The Compare and Analyze section of the Dashboard allows users to visualize and compare food systems indicators globally, regionally, by country, food systems type, or income classification.

The Country Profiles reveal a curated set of 41 indicators for each country to gain in-depth insights into the challenges and opportunities facing countries and their food systems.

For whom and what use?

The Dashboard can be used by anyone interested or involved in the food system, from policymakers to non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, research and businesses. The Dashboard can be used to compare components of food systems across countries and regions. Users can also identify and prioritize ways to sustainably improve diets and nutrition in food systems. Moreover, it can help and support policy and decision makers to understand their food systems, identify their levers of change and decide which ones to pull, and therefore in drafting new policies.