Advocacy for Nutrition For Growth Summit (N4G)

The 2021 Nutrition for Growth Summit (N4G) on 7-8 December 2021 is a four-yearly event that brings together governments, donors and other stakeholders to deliver action on policy and financing commitments towards ending malnutrition. This year’s N4G, hosted by the Government of Japan, will draw global attention to the problems of hunger and malnutrition — exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic – with a specific focus on resilience and fragile and conflict affected contexts.

The Nutrition Cluster is active in many countries that are currently working on national nutrition plans and pledges ahead of the N4G Summit, with participation of relevant actors through national nutrition platforms (ie. SUN platforms). This is especially the case in countries where the Global Action Plan on Child Wasting (GAP Framework) is being operationalized: 19 out of 22 GAP frontrunner countries with GAP Country Roadmaps for Action have active nutrition clusters.

Ahead of the N4G Summit, the GNC Advocacy and Communications Working Group has developed key messages to support GNC partners in raising awareness of the need to scale up commitments for nutrition.

Key advocacy messages:

• Hunger, famine and malnutrition are on the rise. In 2020, 155 million people were estimated to be in acute high food insecurity, up by 20 million from 2019.[1] These deteriorating trends are fuelled by multiple factors, including the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, but severe and protracted violent conflicts remain the main driver of global hunger in 2020. 60% of the world’s hungry people live in places affected by fragility and conflict. To achieve the 2030 goal of ending malnutrition in all its forms, leaving no one behind, urgent investments and commitments in nutrition must benefit the most vulnerable groups (youngest of the young, poorest of the poor, women, elderly) in fragile and conflict-affected contexts, including through support to community health platforms when relevant. This will save lives, protect livelihoods, and build resilience. 
   
• In 2021, the Global Nutrition Cluster provided operation support to 63 priority countries on matters related to sectoral coordination, nutrition in emergencies, nutrition information systems, intersectoral collaboration and information management.[2]Sustaining coordination mechanisms, functions and services beyond the humanitarian imperative contribute to the achievement of national priorities. Despite being “one level” removed from direct programmatic impact, governments and donors must invest in preparedness, response and coordination in longer term development planning providing adequate human and financial resources to ensure that coordination, information management, nutrition in emergencies and nutrition information systems functions are properly undertaken and that governments have the capacity to prevent, respond to and recover from nutrition crises.
   
• Preparedness for response and wider disaster risk reduction should be embedded in national development coordination and assistance frameworks and budgets to ensure sustainability, build people´s resilience and prevent and reduce all forms of malnutrition--with a particular focus on hard to reach communities. For risk-informed planning it is critical to strengthen national coordination capacities as well as national nutrition information systems. The use of disaggregated data helps inform critical decisions affecting the nutrition of children, adolescents and women before, during and after crises. Governments must commit to making sure that plans, policies, and strategies are risk-informed and shock responsive, costed and multi-sectoral in alignment with global standards, guidelines and recommended practices and support improvements in nutrition for all. 
   
• In a crisis, multi-year flexible financing allows governments, humanitarian and development partners joint planning to scale up rapid and early response to shocks and to help chronically at-risk people meet immediate needs,  to address long term needs and tackle the underlying causes of malnutrition. Donors, governments and multilaterals must commit to multi-year, needs-based, predictable, timely and coherent investments in preparedness, recovery and coordination to allow earlier responses to mitigate and respond to potential nutrition crises and to tackle the multi-dimensional drivers of malnutrition in line with government policy.
   

[1] Hunger Hotspots (August-Nov 2021) FAO-WFP early warnings on acute food insecurity 

[2] GNC Mid Year Report 2021