Commissioned by Feed the Future through the Center for Nutrition/Bureau for Resilience, Environments, and Food Security at USAID, this guide provides resources for establishing effective private sector engagement (PSE) to drive nutrition-sensitive impacts focused on dietary diversity, diet quality, and food safety.

Divided into three sections, the guide provides information on:

1. PSE as a core modality to drive nutrition-sensitive impact — outlining what PSE for nutrition is, why it is important, and the impact it can deliver.
2. Defining a new nutrition-focused engagement — providing a summary framework illustrating how to transition from concept to partnership.
3. A detailed operational roadmap to successfully engage the private sector to drive nutrition-sensitive impact — describing the individual steps required to deliver impactful and strategic engagements within the partnership life cycle.

The operational roadmap includes a strategic engagement guide, a menu of partnership archetypes, and several case studies designed to be used together to inform the process of partnering with the private sector.

In order to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero hunger and all forms of malnutrition, the availability and affordability of nutritious food need to be increased. Private sector actors are a critical vector in addressing this; however, barriers to market entry in this sector remain high, profit margins low, and significant sales margins are needed to achieve viable business models. These factors preclude private sector investment in nutrition at scale and require complementary activities by market enablers and governments to maximize potential PSE impact. This guidance document illustrates how private-sector collaborations can deliver nutrition-sensitive outcomes, demonstrating the efficacy of applying a PSE modality to the nutrition space and providing a roadmap for future initiatives that seek to deliver similar results.