Improving Health through Sustainable and Healthy Urban Food System Policy in Nigeria

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall, the article presents a demonstration of sustainable food policy in an urban area (Nnewi in Anambra, Nigeria) that is typical of most of the African region and the Global South, also presenting various techniques that can be used to monitor and evaluate food policy. Developing such systemic solutions is particularly important in African countries.

However, there are a few things to consider before publication that should be corrected/improved:
The title should correspond to the content of the work. Is this a case study?

The manuscript should comply with the journal's guidelines regarding Keywords, Supplementary Materials, etc.
Do I also need Highlights?

The entire manuscript requires tidying up and eliminating repetitions, e.g. the beginning of paragraph 6 and  Introduction. It is a bit difficult to understand what the authors wanted to demonstrate, what proposals are the most important?
And is the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact really a suitable model for Nigeria? Maybe it's worth adding an explanation why?

Also, maybe it's worth adding implementation instead of conclusions

Comments on the Quality of English Language:

Some typographical errors noted throughout. English style and syntaxis should be revised.

Author Response

Attached pdf is the response to comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript deals with an important topic. However, the quality of the presentation needs substantial improvement.

I have several major concerns:

- Authors state that this is a case study, however, it is unclear whether they have adapted any primary data collection.

- Even though the method section refers to literature search, the literature review part(s) of the paper is insufficient. The most important directions of the paper must be supported by relevant literature.

- The methods section poorly describes how the literature search was done. This is not a methodology, as it is not a review article. Here the methodology of conducting this case study should be highlighted.

- Moreover, the literature search itself is not fully clearly described (e.g., what operators were applied between keywords)

- The paper relies on several overall and global statements that are not validated with the literature. E.g., why Nnewi represents well the whole global south?

- Table 1 looks interesting, however, it is not equal whether these diets are traditional or typical to the selected region.

- Table 3 in its form not suitable, it is even too long and unnecessarily detailed for an appendix

- I miss the direct and practical implications, based on the paper, that should be interpreted by an international context. E.g., consuming fresh fruits and vegetables could contribute to healthy diet - what is the case in Nnewi/Nigeria/Global South, and how is the situation compared to Global North (e.g., what are the preferences of European consumers to fresh fruits and vegetables - see among others: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jafr.2023.100883)

Unless these shortcomings are not handled I am afraid it is impossible proceeding with the manuscript.

Author Response

The attached file is the response to the comments.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author(s) have tried to address my comments.  The manuscript can now be published.

Author Response

The response to the comment is attached in the pdf.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript improved substantially. I have one remaining concern, as Table 3 in its present form, is too long and detailed to be part of the body text. I suggest either shortening or moving to the Appendix. 

Author Response

The responses are in the pdf attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx