CC.5.3 Nutrition-sensitive score

CC.5.3 Nutrition-sensitive score

VERSION

V4.0 - 2026.03 — Existing

INDICATOR CODE

CC.5.3

TECHNICAL OWNER

PRG-S Nutrition

INDICATOR TYPE

Country Level Cross-cutting Indicator

Priority Area: Enabling nutrition and healthy diets

INDICATOR CLASSIFICATION

Complementary

INDICATOR SCOPE

Programme specific

APPLICABILITY

This indicator is applicable at CSP level.

This indicator is applicable and recommended to CSPs implementing programmes with a nutrition objective.

It applies to all CSPs with activities targeting direct and indirect beneficiaries (i.e. Tiers 1, 2 and 3), for both direct programming and technical assistance.

UNIT OF MEASUREMENT & ANALYSIS

Score - at the CSP level

DEFINITION

The Nutrition-Sensitive Score measures the proportion of the country office portfolio meeting minimum quality standards (as identified by a Nutrition-Sensitive Marker).

Below are some key terms for this indicator:

Nutrition-Sensitive (NS) programming is implemented in sectors complementary to nutrition, such as agriculture, social protection, and education, and is designed to address the underlying and fundamental determinants of malnutrition – poverty; food insecurity; non-affordable diets; limited access to education, water, sanitation, hygiene, and health services. Nutrition Sensitive programming includes a specific nutrition objective, actions, and diet or nutrition-related outcomes even though the overall programme goal is not.

RATIONALE

The score is process focused and acts as a proxy to assess the quality of nutrition-sensitive programming and the extent to which a country office portfolio is nutrition-sensitive against a set of criteria that represent the standard for good quality nutrition-sensitive programme design and implementation.

DATA COLLECTION TOOL

Through a desk review with verified information, evaluate and score each of the 5 following criteria:

Section 1: The following criteria should be assessed at the CSP level. CSP level means Country Offices should look at the overall CSP while scoring the criteria.
Criteria	Sub-Criteria	Score
1. Situation analysis	Does the country office work with an updated (less than 3-years-old) nutrition and diet situation analysis that includes the following data?
	Mapping of the national nutrition policies, strategies, and actors & multi-sectoral coordination mechanisms	/1
	An analysis of key nutrition and diet issues, vulnerability analysis to identify risks and stressors contributing to malnutrition, drivers, and underlying causes of malnutrition for nutritionally vulnerable groups	/1
	Barriers preventing access to healthy diets (i.e., Fill the Nutrient Gap Analysis/Affordability gap, formative research on consumer preferences etc.)	/1
Sub total		/3
2. Programme design and implementation	Are WFP country office nutrition-sensitive programmes delivered under these conditions?
	A Theory of Change/Programme impact pathway was used to design the nutrition-sensitive programme and activities in collaboration with respective sectors/programme units	/1
	Activities (at community and/or policy/institutional level) use co-location and/or multisectoral policy changes to address underlying and/or indirect causes of malnutrition. This can be through formalized partnerships (For example, URT and NTA activities targeting the same communities, a formalized resilience agreement between UNICEF, WFP and FAO targeting capacity strengthening of national livelihood and education policies, including nutrition components).	/1
Sub total		/2
3.Gender	Does the country office meet the following criteria regarding gender equality and women’s empowerment?
	Are programmes based on a gender and age analysis of nutrition-related data?	/1
	Have programmes been designed to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment (e.g., addressing restrictive social norms that prevent girls from accessing healthy diets, promoting the involvement of fathers in nutrition activities, etc.)	/1
Subtotal		/2
Total Score Section 1		/7
Section 2: The evaluation of the following criteria should be conducted for each activity category *except* for nutrition-specific programmes designed to prevent and treat malnutrition and service delivery programmes. The scoring of each activity category should be determined using the criteria provided below.
4. Activity	Are WFP country office activities delivered under these conditions?
	The needs of nutritionally vulnerable groups are considered in the activity design. For example, adding a nutritionally relevant complementary activity such as Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) programme that are targeted to food insecure households, adding a nutrition education or social and behaviour change (SBC) component targeting men and women, caregivers of children 6–23 months	/1
	The activity includes interventions or actions (direct or indirect WFP support) that intend to address quality, quantity, and or safety of diets; for example, the in-kind transfer is nutritionally adequate, the cash transfer is calculated by using a nutrition-sensitive MEB/FNG, activity (direct or indirect WFP support) and addresses specific barriers to healthy diets	/1
Sub total		/2
5. Monitoring & Evaluation	Does the activity have the right set of indicators and reporting in place that includes the following?
	The activity has at least one nutrition-sensitive outcome indicator (such as MAD/MDD-W/FCS-N, sector-neutral CCS indicators measuring a change related to nutrition ((tagged as nutrition e.g. NTA_CCS, NPA_CCS or HIV_TB_CCS) included in the logframe?	/1
	The baseline and/or annual achievement for the indicator of question 5a has been measured and included in COMET.	/1
	The activity tracks nutrition-sensitive beneficiaries (Tier 1¹, Tier 2 and/or Tier 3).	/1
Sub total		/3
Total Score Section 2		/5
Overall Score Total		/12

Data sources include:

Criteria 1 – Situation Analysis: data source is situation analysis from WFP RAM and nutrition units as well as from government data on the nutrition situation.
Criteria 2 – Programme Design and Implementation: data comes from programme documents.
Criteria 3 – Gender: data source is Gender markers and Gender assessment.
Criteria 4 - Activity: data comes from the CSP or any other programme documents (including Theory of Change).
Criteria 5 – Monitoring and Evaluation: data source is the log-frame (CSP) and COMET

SAMPLING REQUIREMENTS

N/A

INDICATOR CALCULATION FOR REPORTING

The nutrition-sensitive score is calculated in the following steps:

Step 1:

The score has two sections

Section 1 is calculated at the CSP level with the following criteria: 1. Situation Analysis; 2. Programme design and implementation; 3. Gender
Section 2 is calculated at the Activity level with the following criteria: 1. Activity and 2. Monitoring and Evaluation

Within each criterion is a sub-criterion that is assigned a score as follows:

1 (fully met)
0.5 (partially met)
0 (not met at all)

Step 2: Calculation of scores

Section 1:

The total section score is the sum of all sub-criterion scores.

Section 2:

For this section, all CSP activities should be scored. Each activity should be scored separately. To compute the overall score for the section, the average score should then be computed for all activities.

Step 3: Overall Nutrition Sensitive Score

The overall score is the sum of section 1 and section 2 scores.

Maximum total score 12

Minimum total score: 0

The scoring will be done on a yearly basis, with one Nutrition Sensitive score per CSP.

DATA ENTRY AND DISAGGREGATION IN CORPORATE SYSTEMS

Data for this indicator is reported at CSP level.

Values are recorded in the logframe as numerical values (0 - 12).

No disaggregation is required.

BASELINE

New CSP/CSP activities: The first year’s monitoring value should be set as the baseline value. If a Country office intends to collect data annually on an exceptional basis, they must input the first collected value as the baseline in COMET. No values should be entered for follow-up at this stage. Subsequent data collected in the following year will then be recorded as follow-up values in COMET.

Ongoing CSP/CSP activities: First monitoring value for the CSP serves as baseline. And for the first reporting year, for the follow-up value, the “no data” function should be used along with its sub-function “Not applicable”.

TARGET SETTING

Annual target:

The annual target should be set based on a realistic evaluation of the context of operation and the baseline established. Annually the score should improve compared to the previous year.

End of CSP targets:

Should be set based on a realistic evaluation of the context of operation and the baseline established; across the CSP period of 5 years, the score should be expected to improve compared to the baseline and previous year.

FREQUENCY OF DATA COLLECTION

Annual data collection (with annual reporting in the ACR).

Annual data entry into COMET.

INTERPRETATION

The scoring indicates the extent to which a country’s portfolio complies with minimum quality criteria to support the design, implementation and monitoring of nutrition-sensitive programming or assistance to governments.

Total score 0-2 (strongly non-nutrition sensitive) – The country office lacks consideration for most of the criteria essential for high-quality nutrition-sensitive programming.
Total Score 3-5 (non-nutrition sensitive) – The country office is making some efforts towards nutrition-sensitive programming, but there is a need for significant improvements to enhance its effectiveness.
Total Score 6-9 (Fairly nutrition sensitive) – The country office demonstrates a moderate level of alignment with nutrition-sensitive principles and practices, indicating a reasonable level of attention given to these aspects.
Total Score 10-12 (Fully nutrition sensitive) – The country office effectively addresses all the criteria, showcasing a high level of adherence to nutrition-sensitive standards and demonstrating comprehensive inclusion of nutrition-sensitive considerations into program design and implementation.

REPORTING EXAMPLE(S)

Between 2025 and 2026, the Country Office registered an improvement in the overall Nutrition Sensitive Score from 6 to 8, respectively. The improvement in the score reflects the progress made by the country office in improving the quality of its nutrition-sensitive programmes and overall improvements in making the country portfolio nutrition-sensitive.

INDICATORS COLLECTED & ANALYSED AT THE SAME TIME

The following indicators may be reported along with this indicator:

COMPLEMENTARY QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

N/A

DECISIONS DATA CAN INFORM

The score provides guidance for decision-making on enhancing the planning, design, and implementation aspects in order to improve the quality of nutrition-sensitive programming within the overall Country Strategic Plan (CSP) based on the nutrition-sensitive programming guidance.

VISUALIZATION

Data can be visualized to show the changes in the score over the CSP period. Please see an example with a bar graph below:

LIMITATIONS

The Nutrition-Sensitive Score does not directly pinpoint areas of improvement for nutrition-sensitive programming. Instead, it offers a broader perspective on the performance and progression of country offices, providing an overall assessment of their implementation of nutrition-sensitive approaches.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Nutrition Sensitive Guidance

Guidance for Estimating and Counting Beneficiaries | Monitoring (wfp.org)

Nutrition Sensitive Beneficiary Counting Guidance

¹For information on calculating tier 1 beneficiaries see Nutrition-Sensitive Beneficiary Counting Guidance

Documentation Index

CC.5.3 Nutrition-sensitive score