Programme synthesis: the Strategic Partnership on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition

Since 2015 the FCDO and the Gates Foundation have jointly funded the Strategic Partnership on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition: research to make agriculture better for nutrition, to make food safer, and to help low-income households choose healthier food. It works through 41 separate grants, each with its own lead and reporting, so there is no single record of what the programme has achieved.

The programme closes in March 2027. For the Global Research and Technology Development Research Commissioning Centre (RCC), which commissions research for the FCDO, this study draws the programme’s contributions together for the FCDO’s completion review. It is a learning exercise rather than an impact evaluation, and has three parts:

• a synthesis of findings: each grant mapped to the programme’s three outcome areas (more nutrient-dense food, safer food, and scaling what works), with what the research added and the gaps that remain;
• a bibliometric analysis of the programme’s published papers: how many, how widely cited, who wrote them with whom, and how many are open access;
• an outcome assessment: a survey of current and past grantees, followed by six to eight case studies tracing how findings reached government guidelines, donor strategies or practice.

A companion rapid evidence review is updating the wider evidence on agriculture, food systems and nutrition, and feeds into this synthesis.