The Permanent Representation of Germany to the European Union (EU) and Generation Nutrition organized a meeting to boost commitments to nutrition and food security. Bringing together high-level EU decision-makers, international experts and civil society leaders, the meeting discussed how to mobilize strategic and evidence-based commitments to eliminate malnutrition.
Invited to provide the keynote address, Carin Smaller - Co-Chair of Hesat2030 - provided insights based on findings from the upcoming Hesat2030 Nutrition Report.
Why address hunger & malnutrition simultaneously
According to the latest State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024, hunger currently affects 733 million people while a healthy diet is out of reach for 3 billion people. The consequences for malnutrition are dire: 148 million children stunted, 45 million children wasted and 50% of adults overweight or obese.
Solving hunger without addressing concurrently the quality of the diet exacerbates other forms of malnutrition. The current situation in Cambodia illustrates the problem of reducing hunger without address nutrition. While the prevalence of hunger has decreased from nearly 25% in 2000 to 5% in 2020, the prevalence of obesity has triple among women and men in the same period, and most dramatically since 2016.
This places significant health and economic burdens on countries across many years with a current cost estimate of USD 760 billion annually. Tackling malnutrition from the onset is needed. According to estimates from the World Bank, the returns for doing so are unparalleled with every USD 1 invested yielding USD 23 in returns.
Financing nutrition-sensitive agrifood systems
In her presentation, Carin made three recommendations on how to finance nutrition specifically in agrifood systems:
First, ODA for agriculture and food security should integrate nutrition outcomes. Currently, 44% of ODA grants for agrifood system interventions do not have any nutrition objectives; conversely, only 17% have significant or primary nutrition objectives.
Second, ODA should be blended with other sources of finance to leverage more capital. To do so, donors could offer guarantees and provide technical assistance to strengthen local financing ecosystems to help mobilize domestic resources. They could also help development banks take greater risks by devising creative strategies to protect the banks’ balance sheets while enabling them to experiment with smaller, targeted investments.
Finally, countries should increase their ODA for nutrition, especially given significant return on investment. However, rather than large budget increases, countries should focus on quality marker improvements. A number of key moments in 2025 provide opportunities to make such commitments such as the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) initiative as well as the UN Food Systems Summit +4, Finance for Development Conference and the SUN Global Gathering.
The upcoming Hesat2030 Nutrition Report seeks to help policymakers and donors make better informed investment decisions. Through evidence-synthesis and cost modelling, the report will respond to the following questions:
Is there evidence to support cost-effective interventions for healthy diets and nutrition outcomes in agrifood systems?
Beyond enabling healthier diets, is there evidence of secondary outcomes– climate mitigation and adaptation, increased incomes, women’s empowerment, social agency?
How can ‘bundling’ reduce costs and improve outcomes?
댓글