Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps she has taken to ensure the sharing of expertise on nutrition with Governments in her Department’s priority countries.

DFID has been enabling governments that are part of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement to access technical expertise in nutrition since 2012 through the Maximising Quality for Scaling Up Nutrition and the Technical Assistance for Nutrition programmes. As part of this, tools and guidance have been developed for use by government as they design, implement and monitor multi-sector nutrition policies.

Both programmes have also supported learning and exchange between governments that are facing similar challenges. More recently, DFID’s support has enabled sharing of good practice on addressing malnutrition in fragile and conflict-affected countries such as Yemen, Somalia and South Sudan, strengthening national data systems and improving budget analysis.