Strengthening Capacities – An Effective Development Cooperation Approach to Improving Food Security and Nutrition?

Bonn, 25 February 2025 – How effectively can development cooperation guarantee food security and nutrition for people who are experiencing or are at risk of hunger and food crises? The German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval) investigated this question as part of a synthesis study on internationally supported development cooperation strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa. The conclusion: knowledge dissemination and capacity strengthening positively impact food security and nutrition. However, vulnerable population groups in particular benefit from these interventions only if they have access to the resources and rights necessary to apply what they have learned.

Overcoming hunger and poverty remains a core objective of German development cooperation. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (BMZ) recently introduced reform concept confirms this. The ministry directs around 20 percent of its funding to food security and nutrition, agriculture, and rural development, and will place an even greater focus on Sub-Saharan Africa in the future.

Development policy seeks to halt renewed increase in hunger

Climate change, price increases as a result of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, as well as the effects of the COVID pandemic are greatly endangering the successes that were achieved in recent decades in combating hunger and malnutrition. In some parts of Africa, hunger is once again increasing, and food crises are on the rise. While 45 percent of the population in Africa were affected by moderate or severe food insecurity in 2015, this figure rose to 59 percent by 2024.

DEval provides an important basis for decision-making

Disseminating knowledge and strengthening capacities are important development cooperation tools, as they boost people’s agency to better guarantee their supply of food and nutrition. In a synthesis study of the internationally available evidence, DEval considered the effectiveness of knowledge dissemination and capacity strengthening interventions along agricultural supply chains and for local consumers.

The study is the first of its kind, as it presents the effects of a variety of development interventions on all six dimensions of food security: (i) Availability of food, (ii) Utilisation of food, (iii) Access to food, (iv) Stability of food systems, (v) Sustainability of food systems, and (vi) people`s agency. The study shows which types of measure have proven effective.

Results: interventions should be combined

The core finding of the study is that interventions to disseminate knowledge and strengthen capacities positively influence all dimensions of food security and nutrition. However, DEval also concluded that no one type of measure is effective in all six food security dimensions. The synthesis study shows which interventions can lead to success in which dimension. In this way, it can support governmental and civil society development stakeholders in planning combinations of measures and provide them with an important foundation for making decisions.

Along the agricultural supply chain, for example, advice to agricultural stakeholders on climate-adapted farming helps to improve access to food and nutrition and increase its availability. Food-related knowledge can be passed on at community meetings in order to promote diverse nutrition in local households. The additional knowledge can also improve their agency in making decisions relating to food and nutrition. DEval has concluded that combining interventions can heighten the impact on food security and nutrition.

In addition, combining interventions is essential in order to reach particularly vulnerable population groups. Evaluation team lead Dr Cornelia Römling emphasises: “It has been proven that particularly vulnerable population groups such as women, children, and Indigenous people are often unable to benefit from a stand-alone capacity-strengthening intervention. They often lack resources such as money or machines in order to put what they have learned into practice.” Furthermore, they often have no or only limited ownership of or use rights for land where they could grow food. According to Römling, this is an indication in favour of bundling interventions and, for example, combining the dissemination of knowledge with the provision of seeds, cash transfers, or advice on land rights.

Outlook: Food security and multilateralism

In 2026, DEval plans to evaluate the effectiveness of multilateral development cooperation in the area of food security. It thus simultaneously intensifies two priority topics in German development cooperation according to the BMZ’s reform plan: Multilateralism and tackling hunger. In this way, DEval will continue to generate important insights into food security and nutrition for the BMZ’s evidence-based shaping of policy.

About the study

DEval gathered evidence from more than 50 international scientific impact evaluations in its synthesis study focused on Sub-Saharan Africa and assessed them. The full version of the study titled “The Effects of Capacity Strengthening Interventions on Food Security and Nutrition” is published in English on the DEval website. The German-language summary “Wirkungen von kapazitätsstärkenden Maßnahmen auf die Ernährungssicherheit” is also available on the DEval website.