Learn how to monitor and evaluate food resilience initiatives
Assess food system change and progress towards resilience objectives
Key steps and tools
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Monitoring and evaluation is important to understand the effectiveness of initiatives in strengthening resilience and in achieving objectives related to food security, equity, health, environment and economy. It also provides data to make the case for funding and resources to support ongoing food resilience initiatives.
Key steps in monitoring and evaluation include:
- Developing a logic model to inform the evaluation
- Determining evaluation questions related to the purpose of the evaluation
- Identifying indicators of food systems change, associated measures and potential sources of data
Consider involving other food system stakeholders in developing an approach to monitoring and evaluation, and what their role might be.
Recommended external resources
The Roadmap to Social Impact from the Centre for Social Impact provides guidance on measurement and evaluation
The Better Evaluation Rainbow Framework and the Evaluation Toolbox can support monitoring and evaluation
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A logic model can be developed with key stakeholders when an initiative or strategy is being developed, or when an evaluation process begins. It depicts the inputs, activities and outputs of your food initiative or strategy.
- Inputs are the resources required, such as funding, staffing or local food system networks
- Activities are what will be implemented, such as procuring healthy and sustainable food, or investigating options for community food enterprises
- Outputs are the immediate changes or what has been delivered, such as the delivery of food growing workshops, development of a funding proposal, or the number and diversity of program participants
A logic model shows how the inputs and activities lead to short-, medium- and long-term food system outcomes. Consider outcomes across key food system domains - equity, health, environment and economy - as well as food security and resilience, when developing a logic model.
Tools and templates
- A logic model template for a food resilience initiative
- A worked example of a logic model for a food resilience initiative or strategy
Recommended external resources
The Commonwealth Evaluation Toolkit from the Australian Centre for Evaluation includes logic model tools
The Healthy Food Partnership logic model developed by the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing focuses on increasing healthy dietary behaviour
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Key evaluation questions are overarching questions that an evaluation aims to answer. They help to guide the collection and analysis of data in relation to outcomes.
Establishing the purpose of the evaluation will inform the development of key evaluation questions. There are three main types of evaluation that have different purposes - process, outcome and economic.
Example evaluation questions for different types of evaluation
Evaluation type Rationale Example evaluation questions Process - Assesses the progress of a food system initiative or strategy during development and implementation
- Used to identify opportunities for improvement in design and implementation
- To what extent were activities implemented as planned?
- To what extent did the governance structure support implementation and oversight?
- What have been the key facilitators and barriers to implementation
Outcome - Assesses the degree to which food system outcomes have been achieved
- Conducted towards the end or at completion of a food system initiative or strategy
- What changes occurred?
- What is different as a result of the food system initiative or strategy? For whom?
- To what extent has there been system change as a result of the initiative?
Economic - Assesses cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness of the food system initiative or strategy
- Informs resource allocation
- Has the food system initiative or strategy been cost-effective?
- Is the initiative the best use of resources?
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Progress toward food system outcomes is assessed using indicators and measures.
Guidance in this toolkit for monitoring and evaluation of food resilience initiatives aligns with definitions of outcomes, indicators and measures widely used within Victorian Government [1].
The relationship between outcomes, indicators, measures and targets
Outcomes Indicators Measures Targets Outcomes express the desired state at different stages of the food system initiative or strategy.
They show what success looks like.
Indicators are used to assess progress towards an outcome.
Indicators set the direction of change and are frequently expressed as “increased” or “decreased”.
Measures quantify the size or degree of change in relation to indicators.
Measures can be either quantitative or qualitative. Quantitative measures are frequently expressed as “number of” or “percentage of”.
Some measures may have targets. These need to be feasible and to reflect the scale and intensity of the food system initiative.
Targets may be expressed as an increase or decrease in the measure from baseline (at the start of the initiative).
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Short, medium and long-term indicators capture the degree of change in relation to outcomes outlined in a logic model.
Identifying food system indicators will depend on a range of factors including the purpose of the evaluation, budget and availability of data. Indicators can be developed in collaboration with food system stakeholders. Existing food system indicator frameworks are a useful source of potential indicators.
Data to assess progress against indicators of short- and medium-term change can often be collected at the project level or locally through surveys during implementation of a food system initiative or strategy.
Data for long-term indicators can be more difficult to access, and it is useful to incorporate data routinely collected by government and other longitudinal data sets into an evaluation.
The table below shows sample long-term indicators across key food system domains with associated measures and potential data sources.
Data sources to track long-term food system change across outcome domains
Food system outcome Sample indicators of long-term change Sample measure Potential data sources for long-term indicators Equity
Increase food security % population who ran out of food and could not afford to buy more Victorian Population Health Survey Dashboards Victorian Public Health and Wellbeing Outcomes Dashboard
% of households growing their own food Council data Health
Increase consumption of fruit/vegetables % population meeting recommended intake of fruit/vegetables Victorian Population Health Survey Dashboards Victorian Public Health and Wellbeing Outcomes Dashboard
Australian Bureau of Statistics: Dietary behaviour
Increase access to healthy food Average distance to closest healthy food outlet (supermarket or greengrocer) Food - Australian Urban Observatory Number of community food organisations providing healthy, affordable food Council/organisational data Environment
Increase urban and peri-urban agriculture Number of municipal policies and regulations in support of urban and peri-urban agriculture Council/organisational data Increase diversion of household food and organics away from landfill Number of kilograms of household food and organics collected Victorian local government waste data dashboard Economy
Increase investment in local and regional food system networks % budget invested in local and regional food system resources & initiatives Council/organisational data Decrease unemployment Increase labour market participation
% unemployed (LGA level) % youth unemployed (LGA level)
% employed by industry
Employment Region Dashboards and Profiles | Jobs and Skills Australia Increase regional economic development Multiple indicators (Regional level) Regional Economic Development Strategies (REDS) - Regional Development Victoria Tools and templates
- A template to identify indicators and measures for a food resilience initiative or strategy
- A worked example of short-, medium- and long-term indicators for a food resilience initiative or strategy
Recommended external resources
The London Food Strategy indicators are used to monitor progress under six key strategy settings, including the home, retail, public institutions and community settings.
The City of Melbourne Liveability and Social Indicators provide annually collected data that is used to monitor progress against their Council’s ten-year food policy and other plans.
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International food system indicator frameworks can be used to inform the selection of medium- or long-term indicators to track progress towards the outcomes of an initiative or strategy. These indicator frameworks suggest indicators across many different categories related to equity, health, environment and economy, such as sustainable livelihoods, food system governance, resilience and food security.
Indicator framework Indicators City Region Food System (CRFS) Sustainability Indicator Framework (2017) 210 indicators grouped by six sustainability areas: - Social sustainability and equity (improved health and well-being)
- Economic sustainability (increased local economic growth and decent jobs)
- Environmental sustainability (improved stewardship of environmental resources)
- Urban-rural integration (improved city region food supply)
- Food governance (improved governance for sustainable food systems)
- Reduced vulnerability and increased resilience
Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (2019) 44 indicators across six categories: - Governance
- Sustainable diets and nutrition
- Social and economic equity
- Food production (including urban-rural linkages)
- Food supply and distribution
- Food waste
Food Systems Countdown Initiative - FSCI (2021) 50 indicators across five thematic areas: - Diets, nutrition and health
- Environment, production and natural resources
- Livelihoods, poverty and equity
- Governance
- Resilience
City Region Food System (CRFS) Resilience Indicator Framework (2023) 155 indicators grouped by food system nodes & other aspects of a resilient food system: - Food input supply and production
- Food storage, processing and manufacturing
- Food wholesale and distribution
- Food markets, catering and retail
- Food consumption
- Food loss and waste
- Natural resources and ecosystem services
- Emergency food provisioning
- Food system governance
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[1] Victorian Government (2019) Outcomes reform in Victoria, Department of Premier and Cabinet, State of Victoria.
Monitoring resilient food systems in the USA
- Regional food policies have been adopted at the county level in the states of California and Texas
- Food system dashboards collate data to monitor progress against food system indicators identified in the regional food policies
- The dashboards include information about the data source, scale and date of data collection
- The dashboards provide a place for collective monitoring and evaluating progress among partners
Evaluating Merri-bek food systems initiatives
- Merri-bek City Council released its first food system strategy in 2017
- The Council recognised that long-term investment in food system change is required to build a just, sustainable and vibrant food system
- A food systems logic model maps pathways between activities in the strategy and long-term outcomes
- One of the activities in the strategy is the Merri-bek Community Food Hub, which has been evaluated within the overarching framework of the food systems logic model
Key concepts
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