The global challenges of malnutrition and climate change demand urgent solutions. Millions of people face hunger, billions cannot afford a healthy diet, and food systems contribute a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions while exerting additional environmental pressures. Addressing these interconnected issues requires transforming food systems to ensure that affordable, healthy and sustainable diets are possible under the conditions of climate change. However, existing tools struggle to handle large datasets or provide timely, actionable insights. Without an integrated platform, decision-makers lack the evidence needed to tackle these challenges effectively and to drive equitable food systems transformation.
Project overview
The ENHANCE platform assesses economic access to adequate diets by measuring food availability, affordability and nutritional adequacy, with a focus on food‑insecure and vulnerable populations.
The ENHANCE platform assesses economic access to adequate diets by measuring food availability, affordability and nutritional adequacy, with a focus on food‑insecure and vulnerable populations. It diagnoses local food‑system gaps, quantifies the cost of nutritious baskets and balances nutrition goals with affordability and sustainability to guide agricultural investments, policy and programme design.
WFP nutrition teams and decision‑makers use ENHANCE for operational planning and targeting. ENHANCE supports subsidy, market and supply‑chain interventions. At scale, the platform would be used by other UN agencies or governments to inform policy, prioritize investments and monitor equitable, resilient progress toward improved diet access.
ENHANCE launched version 2.0 of the platform with training conducted across eight countries during Q1 2026. Enhance piloted in two countries and has been tested with analysts across 14 WFP country offices.
In 2025, it saved WFP USD 25,000 and, after global headquarters’ full transition from the Cost of the Diet, saved about 500 work hours.
ENHANCE made it possible for WFP Zambia to conduct a multiyear analysis on the cost and affordability of their basket. Using 12 years of data, they could understand the changing costs of the diet against various climate indicators to inform their anticipatory action frameworks, ensuring robust and sustainable basket allocation in the country office.