Food Is Fundamental – So Where is the Funding?

By Courtenay O’Connor, CCS Associate Director

On Monday, June 13, 2011, the Bread for the World Institute and Concern Worldwide sponsored an international conference on 1,000 Days to Scale up Nutrition for Mothers and Children: Building Political Commitment in Washington DC. CCS teamed up with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) to report on the findings of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-sponsored study on Building a Global Advocacy Agenda for Scaling up Nutrition, offering a vital missing piece to the nutrition advocacy puzzle.

Food is fundamental. Sounds simple, right? Food as a source of nourishment and essential nutrients for human growth and potential is a universal truth. Food, according to World Bank President Robert Zoellick, is fundamental. No arguments there.

Let’s break it down a little further.

Food that is nutritious, containing essential vitamins, minerals and proteins, is especially critical during the first 1,000 days of a child’s life (from conception to 2 years of age). Nourishing mothers and babies makes all the difference: healthy babies can become healthy adults, who in turn build healthy communities and healthy nations.

What’s more – the world produces enough food to adequately nourish all of its inhabitants. So, in theory, if the world produces enough nutritious food to go around and everyone needs food to remain properly nourished, then no one should be undernourished.

Pretty straightforward, no?

Unfortunately, the reality does not match up with the facts. Undernutrition is a chronic human tragedy that stunts children, families, countries, and economies.

Approximately 1/3 of the world’s population is severely affected by undernutition? That means that 1 billion people suffer from hunger and another billion have diets that are inadequate in nutrient content , leading to significant health problems, according to David Nabarro, the United Nations Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition. And the burden of undernutrition is not equally distributed: 80% of the globally malnourished are concentrated in just 20 countries.

In fact, the European Commission has a policy on whether a cucumber sold in the European Community should be curved or straight, but has no official, comprehensive policy on undernutrition? It’s sad but true, says Alan Dangour, LSHTM Senior Lecturer: the EC’s development policy efforts on undernutrition are spread across its Global Health, Humanitarian Assistance, and Food Security efforts, but there is no comprehensive policy that unites these efforts and ensures nutrition is a priority both financially and politically.

This policy “pickle” highlights some of the major challenges facing the nutrition advocacy community. Other hurdles? Try barriers to multi-sectoral nutrition initiatives, the need for unified, targeted messaging, and the lack of results-driven programming and coordinated, smart funding.

Fortunately, the nutrition community was present in full force Monday at the conference on 1,000 Days to Scale up Nutrition for Mothers and Children to face these issues head on and collaborate on a way forward.

In the presence of so many smart, committed and passionate people from around the world, it became apparent we stand at an unprecedented moment in history.

As Monday proved, the stars are aligning in the world of nutrition, bringing together the tools, champions and agents for change that, together, can start making and influencing smart nutrition policy.

First, the Tools:

The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Framework: The SUN Framework for action offers a standard policy framework for governmental, international and community partners to standardize and collaborate on their nutrition initiatives. SUN stresses that efforts to tackle undernutrition must be country-led, and many countries have already committed to the SUN framework.
The Evidence base: World experts agree that investing in infant and child nutrition can lead to an estimated 2-3% increase in the economic wealth of developing countries. SUN initiatives can help to avert the deaths of 1 million children per year. The average estimated cost to benefit ratio of nutrition interventions is an astonishing 15.8:1, making it one of the most cost-effective, high yielding development interventions.
The 1,000 Days movement: Established through the committed and concerted leadership of the US and Ireland, this movement provides a hub for global health and development advocates to engage in the effort to improve maternal and infant nutrition, share best practices, and champion better investment and innovation in nutrition.

Then, the Champions:

In addition to Mr. Zoellick and Dr. Nabarro, the conference brought together a long list of notable advocates for nutrition and featured video addresses from:

In addition, there were many other major nutrition and hunger advocates, like Tom Arnold, CEO, Concern Worldwide; Kevin Farrell, special envoy for hunger, Ireland; Maria Otero, U.S. Under Secretary of State for democracy and global affairs; Paul Weisenfeld, Assistant to the Administrator, Bureau for Food Security, USAID; and David Beckmann, President of Bread for the World and 2010 World Food Prize Winner.

Finally, the Agents for Change:

The conference also brought together leaders of civil society and faith-based organizations as well as trailblazing government officials from the “Early Riser” Countries committed to the framework for SUN. This forum continued and deepened the dialogue among the “boots on the ground” and allowed the exchange of field experiences, best practices, and a common way forward.

With the tools, champions, and agents for change aligned, all of the necessary components for combating undernutrition are in place, right?

Wrong!

Where’s the Funding?

Scaling up specific nutrition efforts around the world could reduce deaths in children under three by 25%, but would cost up $10.6 billion according to the World Bank. Currently, however, global partners spend a mere $300 million to $400 million annually on nutrition.

How can we overcome this seemingly insurmountable burden? We can begin by building a nutrition advocacy agenda that harnesses the benefits of cross-sectoral collaboration and advocates for new and better investments.

These are just some of the main takeaways from the CCS/LSHTM presentation to the nutrition community based on the joint US/Europe nutrition donor landscape studies. Thanks to these efforts, nutrition partners can add another tool to their belts: a clear and pointed agenda for filling the funding gap and moving towards ending the “scandal of hunger” and undernutrition for good.

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Want to find out more?

Click here to see the CCS/LSHTM presentation

Click here to request a copy of the CCS/LSHTM joint report

Click here to check out the 1,000 Days hub and congratulate its new Director, CCS alumna and conference presenter Lucy Martinez Sullivan!