Mapping of guidelines and tools for cost analysis and economic evaluation of nutrition programming

The Global Action Plan on Child Wasting sets ambitious goals for the treatment and prevention of child wasting, emphasising the need to employ cost-effective solutions. However, recent reviews of cost analyses and economic evaluations of nutrition programs have concluded that reliable evidence on the cost of acute malnutrition treatment is limited and that significant challenges remain in meaningful meta-analysis and comparability across studies. As such, it is difficult to draw generalisations about the cost of treatment under varying circumstances, to model projected cost implications of changes in care protocols, or determine what actions to prioritise first. Furthermore, current evidence on value for money of various nutrition programmes is conflicting and there remains an unmet demand for empirically-driven recommendations to inform policy and resource allocation decisions.

These challenges persist in part because of the use of non-standardized methods, variable analytical choices, and opaque reporting common across many studies.

In 2023, the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC) Technical Alliance commissioned a mapping exercise of the guidelines and tools available on the design and execution of cost analyses. The objective of this exercise was to identify existing guidance and tools that can help with the design and conduct of cost analysis and economic evaluations of acute malnutrition treatment and prevention programmes.