Abstract
In recent years, a range of new indices, benchmarking and scorecard tools—also known as ‘indicators’—have been developed to influence public policy and to promote accountability. While subjected to important technical and political critiques, the policy impact of ‘indicators’ is often assumed yet rarely demonstrated. Suitable evaluative methods are in their infancy. This article adopts an innovative process tracing analysis to assess the policy impact of the Hunger And Nutrition Commitment Index (HANCI) in Bangladesh, Malawi, Nepal, Zambia and globally. We present a rare and empirically rich application of this systematic qualitative evaluative method. We further contribute to the theorisation of ‘indicators’ by positing a central role for equitable producer–user relations in mediating policy impact, and demonstrate that such relations can overcome significant political critiques on ‘indicators’.
Highlights
In recent years, reducing hunger and malnutrition has come to be viewed as much an outcome of a political process as of technical interventions
This is evidenced by a list of published research and communications products for 2012–2015 that include: evidence reports and a learning partnership report, an updated website www.hancindex.org, one animated film, infographics/maps, slideshows and journal articles (Food Policy, World Development); and for each new issue of Hunger And Nutrition Commitment Index (HANCI): scorecards with rankings and data for 45 countries and international/country-specific press releases, tweets and blogs
A recent review of 22 ‘indicators’ in the field of nutrition underlined that HANCI is rare in explicitly setting out a theory of change from the start (Results for Development 2019)
Summary
In recent years, reducing hunger and malnutrition has come to be viewed as much an outcome of a political process as of technical interventions. A range of new metrics, analytics and scorecard tools have proliferated to assess political commitment and to promote accountability for reducing hunger and malnutrition. These include: the Global Hunger Index (WHH et al, 2012), the Access to Nutrition Index (GAIN 2013) or The Economist’s Global Food Security Index (EIU 2012), World Health Organization (WHO) Nutrition Landscape Analyses (Engesveen et al 2009) and the Hunger And Nutrition Commitment Index (te Lintelo et al 2013), amongst others. These instruments mark part of a global trend, with Davis et al (2012, pp. 73–74) defining an indicator as “a named collection of rank-ordered data that purports to represent the past or projected performance of different units” [...] “used to compare particular units of analysis (such as countries, institutions, or corporations), synchronically or over time, and to evaluate their performance by reference to one or more standards.” Typically, ‘indicators’ aim to support accountability, monitor, evaluate, influence and reform public policy reform and to affect attitudes, behaviours and actions of governments and their bureaucratic apparatus
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