Food Aid Quality Review Phase III: Quarterly Technical Report No. 16

Government's humanitarian agenda by establishing evidence-based information systems, tools, and data-gathering and evidence-sharing platforms on food aid for nutrition. The project's goal is to enable government-wide actions and public/private engagement around food aid to achieve greater cost-effectiveness for decades to come. During the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2020, the project team advanced FAQR objectives in several areas. The FAQR Supply Chain Optimization team was awarded second place in the Doing Good with Good Operations Research Student Paper Competition at the 2019 Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) Annual Meeting. The team also presented their warehouse location and inventory positioning modeling framework at the meeting, which was attended by academic and industry experts. The U.S. Government Interagency Technical Working Group on Food Assistance Quality met on October 29, 2019, in Washington, DC, to discuss the food aid quality specification process, food assistance packaging, food safety and quality assurance, and next steps for collaboration and sustainability. The meeting was attended by 35 USAID and USDA staffers and FAQR team members. Key outcomes included the establishment of a specifications sub-working group to meet monthly and establish 2020 priorities, including developing a schedule for updating selected product specifications. The FAQR Cost Specialist organized a Food Assistance Cost-Effectiveness Tool (FACET) interface and user manual draft review meeting on November 1, 2019, in Washington, DC, with USAID/FFP nutrition team members. The wider nutrition team provided additional written feedback during the following week, which was incorporated into a new FACET user manual version. The copy-edited version was sent to five expert reviewers from various external institutions and organizations to provide written technical feedback on the manual and the interface. The project team plans to continue working on several key activities in the coming quarter, including updating the USAID/FFP Food Assistance Resources webpages and developing a food aid safety and quality assurance feedback loop application. The team will also conduct scenario building and analysis for supply chain oversight, including running scenarios for warehouse and inventory positioning models and preparing manuscripts based on completed scenario analysis. Additionally, the team will finalize the FACET interface and user manual, incorporating expert reviewers' feedback and reviewing by the FFP nutrition team. The project's geographic focus is on global food aid programs, with a specific emphasis on the U.S. Government's humanitarian agenda. The project's timeframes are quarterly, with the current report covering the period from October 2019 to December 2019. The project's recommendations include establishing evidence-based information systems, tools, and data-gathering and evidence-sharing platforms on food aid for nutrition, and enabling government-wide actions and public/private engagement around food aid to achieve greater cost-effectiveness for decades to come.