Worldwide—Nutrition Action for Systemic Change (NASC)

Nutrition Action for Systemic Change (NASC) Technical Assistance Facility was managed by DAI and contracted through the Expert Advisory Call Down Service 2 (EACDS2) Lot 4: Climate, Nature and Global Health, funded by the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). EACDS2 technical advisory services provide rapid, quality-assured, short-term technical expertise to support the development of U.K. aid projects. The technical assistance operated under two separate contracts: NASC 1 (December 2023 to December 2024) and NASC 2 (February 2025 to February 2026). These followed the previous Technical Assistance to Strengthen Capabilities (TASC) Project, a component of FCDO’s Technical Assistance for Nutrition (TAN) Programme.

NASC provided technical expertise to support the U.K.’s efforts to address malnutrition and deliver on global commitments made at the 2021 and 2025 Nutrition for Growth (N4G) summits. In 2021, FCDO committed to integrating nutrition across its aid portfolio, investing at least £1.5 billion by 2030 in projects that improve nutrition and embedding the Nutrition Policy Marker (NPM) within its systems. In 2025, FCDO further committed to strengthening integration across its official development assistance (ODA) portfolio, championing the Global Compact for Nutrition Integration, and developing and reporting annually against a results target.

The NASC consortium partners were NutritionWorks, the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) and Options.

Over the two-year period, the NASC Technical Assistance Facility responded to 19 requests from FCDO across four key areas:

1. Tracking FCDO’s accountability to nutrition
2. Evidence-based prioritization of integrated nutrition project response and monitoring
3. Policy, influence, and change among FCDO, partner governments, and other actors
4. Accessing diversified and sustainable finance for nutrition The Technical Assistance Facility also aimed to strengthen links with FCDO’s broader commitment to end preventable deaths of mothers, newborns, and children by 2030, including in fragile and conflict-affected settings.

Demand-driven technical assistance was provided as short- or long-term expertise and targeted projects across all stages, from design to implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and learning. NASC’s approach focused on ensuring effective coordination, communication, engagement, capacity building, and the production of high-quality deliverables.

Sample Activities

• Supported FCDO accountability for project results through delivery of the Child Wasting Innovation Programme (CWIP) feedback mechanism (2020–2025).
• Screened 292 projects across FCDO’s portfolio, including commercial agriculture, to assess nutrition integration, strengthening monitoring and integration across multiple countries.
• Identified geographic hotspots, vulnerable groups, and data gaps in Afghanistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Myanmar to inform prioritization of nutrition actions across multiple sectors in humanitarian and development contexts.
• Strengthened integration of nutrition within climate policy and financing processes in Bangladesh and Madagascar.
• Developed a “do no harm” framework to mitigate unintended negative impacts of development projects and Development Finance Institution (DFI) investments on nutrition.
• Delivered a training of trainers package to FCDO partner organizations and government staff in Somalia to strengthen nutrition service delivery within health systems.
• Developed internal guidance for FCDO on the prevention and treatment of child wasting.
• Strengthened the use of nutrition information systems and synthezised multi-country lessons into a learning brief and scoping matrix to inform decision-making.
• Tracked FCDO nutrition investment and scored projects against the NPM for accountability.

Select results

• Developed and launched Unlocking Climate Finance for Nutrition: A Tool for Country Action, equipping countries to move from policy commitments to financing readiness and Increased country readiness to access climate finance for nutrition, through sequenced global and peer-to-peer webinars (over 300 participants).
• Improved application of the NPM, increasing project scoring from 52% (2022) to 84% (2025).
• Strengthened FCDO’s advocacy capacity for nutrition integration into primary health care and the Universal Health Coverage agenda with a framing paper and a case study featuring insights from Nigeria and Pakistan.
• Produced two recommendation briefs on Afghanistan, (1) funding priorities for malnutrition response and (2) the impact of restrictions on women and girls on their nutritional outcomes, to support a consensus-based, multi-sectoral prioritization of nutrition and food security in Afghanistan, through the Food Security and Nutrition Dialogue Series, informing the London Compact and FCDO portfolio decisions.
• Strengthened evidence for integrating nutrition into investment decisions across seven commercial agriculture projects, supporting FCDO’s response to the International Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI) review of UK aid to agriculture in a time of climate change.
• Supported Nigeria to advance domestic nutrition financing through the development of a government-led Nutrition Resource Mobilisation Strategy aligned with public financial systems.