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EFP is a research project funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR) through the NextGenerationEU plan. EFP will produce evaluation studies of food security programs implemented by local Italian governments to extract usable knowledge for their assessment and transfer to other contexts.
The six programs selected for evaluation are social markets, food stamps, donation incentives, farmer markets, urban agriculture, and supply chain optimisation. EFP lasts two years (2023-2025) and is coordinated by the University of Teramo.

Objectives & Outcomes

Evaluation

We want to provide evidence of what works in food policy programs: their outputs, outcomes and impact.
We will produce six evaluation studies, one for each selected policy program.
The aim is to generate usable knowledge to inform program reform and improvement.

Extrapolation

We aim to bridge the gap between “it works here” and “how to make it work there”. We will review methods for tackling the extrapolation problem, propose an approach suitable for transferring policy programs across contexts, and suggest ways to ensure the external validity of the six food security programs selected for evaluation.

Orientation to practice

Our focus is to maximize the dissemination and impact of our results. We will draft the six evaluation reports as Starter Kits; easy-to-read, design-oriented policy briefs targeting practitioners and providing them with the needed information to support policy design and implementation. Further, we will organize six laboratories to facilitate policy transfer.

Why food security

Food security is when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (FAO, 2009, Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security).

Unfortunately, the number of people experiencing hunger and food insecurity is increasing worldwide.

Conflicts, COVID-19, and climate change are undermining the global food supply system and pushing more people into food poverty.

According to the latest data (United Nations, The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022), as many as 828 million people (1 in 10 people worldwide) may have suffered from hunger in 2021, with about 150 million more people facing hunger in 2021 than in 2019. In addition, in 2021, nearly 2.3 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure, an increase of almost 350 million people since the start of the pandemic.

Furthermore, the share of countries affected by high food prices has risen sharply, climbing from 16 per cent in 2019 to 47 per cent in 2020. This increase is due to rising freight and agricultural input costs, logistical bottlenecks and market uncertainties, which are increasing pressure on food prices.
The war in Ukraine has worsened this situation by causing a steep and sudden reduction in exports of cereals, sunflower seeds and fertilizers.

Low and middle-income countries are experiencing the worst of the food crisis, but even wealthy countries are facing food insecurity.
Cities are leading the way in experimenting with policy solutions to address this crisis. EFP recognizes two essential aspects of food security: ensuring that enough food is available (supply-driven component) and that households can access enough nutritious food (demand-driven component).

As a result, the EFP evaluation studies include six programs implemented in Italy: three focusing on the demand side (social markets, incentives for food donation, food stamps) and three focusing on the supply side (farmers’ markets, urban agriculture, and optimization of the food supply chain).

Evaluation & Extrapolation

Evidence that a policy program works in one context does not tell if it will work elsewhere—in a new city, with a different target population, at a different time, or under a different administration. This is known as the extrapolation problem and affects all applied research, from clinical studies to policy evaluation. The extrapolation problem limits the prospect of learning from others and undermines the foundation of evidence-based policy. How can we use existing knowledge to solve future problems in new contexts?

The EFP approach to the extrapolation problem combines impact, process and theory-based evaluation. We seek to analyse if and how the program is producing impact, extrapolate its causal mechanisms, and determine whether adjustments to design and implementation are necessary to fit new contexts.