by Marian Amaka Odenigbo
On 15 and 16 July 2014, FAO/USAID/FANTA organized a meeting on the global dietary diversity indicator for assessing the micronutrient adequacy of women's diets in Washington DC, USA. IFAD was among the development agencies present at this meeting. Participants were challenged to reach a consensus on a global indicator for assessing women's dietary adequacy based on the Women's Dietary Diversity Project (WDDP-II) draft report. The diets of resource-poor population are very monotonous, dominated by starchy staples which fail to meet micronutrients needs. Women of reproductive age are among the nutritionally vulnerable groups and their poor micronutrient intake harm not only themselves, but also their children.
WDDP is designed to respond to the need for a simple global indicator of women's diet quality with specific focus on micronutrient adequacy. WDDP uses existing datasets from women's dietary intake in resource-poor settings. It analyses the relationship between dietary diversity and micronutrient adequacy and serves as a proxy for the micronutrient adequacy of women's diets.
The first phase of WDDP-I resulted in a candidate indicator of 9-food group which was adopted in several FAO-supported programmes. However, this 9-food group indicator was not adopted for use on a more global basis due to the preference to use a dichotomous indicator. Dichotomous indicator relies on cut-offs for the choice of positive and negative options. Based on this, FAO initiated the follow-on project (WDDP II) to address the need for a dichotomous women's dietary diversity indicator. On completion of WDDPII, two candidate indicators were selected: (i) 9-food group (FGI-9R); and (ii) 10-food group (FGI-10R).
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