Spatial variation in the cost and affordability of the global healthy diet basket: Evidence from household surveys in five African countries

Abstract

Since 2020, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) expanded its global food security metrics, adding Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD). In 2022, they introduced a global Healthy Diet Basket (HDB) standard to estimate countries' CoAHD. This study adopts the HDB method along with prices derived from expenditure modules of 2018-19 household surveys from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria and Senegal to compute subnational indicators. Findings reveal HDB's efficacy in capturing local consumption patterns when combined with household-level unit prices, making it valuable in the absence of national food-based dietary guidelines. Findings also show that CoAHD indicators derived from national defined basket should be interpreted as lower boundaries, advocating for subnational baskets to guide policies aimed at improving access to healthy diets.