The US Agency for International Development, Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance has a requirement for the Optimizing Food Assistance Programs, Processes and Products for Nutrition (O3P) project.

USAID’s legacy Food for Peace Office and now BHA, have successfully contracted services to meet our ongoing needs related to the effective and safe use of food assistance to improve nutrition and well-being for populations affected by crises. Through three iterations of FAQR, spanning approximately 15 years, USAID/BHA benefited from the ability to conduct novel field trials, convene experts to discuss contemporary science and developments related to the safe and effective delivery of food assistance, develop tools that serve BHAs implementing partners in ensuring that foods are fit for purpose, and innumerate other efforts to bring greater value to the delivery of food assistance. These efforts are viewed as institutional necessities to be able to inform how to reach the many of the world’s most vulnerable with food assistance programs that are able to deliver on their promise to improve nutrition outcomes.

• Pillar I
  • Provide leadership and administrative functions for ongoing intra-USG and international inter-agency groups to promote the continued improvement of programming, processes, and products
  • Convene specialized expertise in key domains in programs, processes, and products related to food assistance for ongoing improvement and innovation and to provide platforms for knowledge exchange
• Pillar II
  • Manage information and accrued knowledge to create, share, and use both efficiently and strategically for an international community of users, leveraging the existing ecosystem of platforms and tools
• Pillar III
  • Trial supplementation approaches (products and/or other program choices) to generate an enhanced understanding of the overall effect on pregnancy outcomes and women’s nutritional status, cost, and cost-effectiveness implications; and/or other aspects to improve the collective understanding of reducing the wasting burden through an intergenerational approach
  • Improve partnership and collaboration between research entities and field operational agencies in the generation of evidence
  • Improve understanding of how elements of risk affect wasting programs, patients, and prognoses
  • Refine understanding of health and nutrition effects of prolonged dependence on food assistance-based diet and relative adequacy of food assistance approaches for varied population sub-groups