Date: Thursday 29 November

Time: 1pm – 2.30pm (GMT+7)

Location: World Ballroom C, Centara Grand and Bangkok Convention Centre, CentralWorld

Register for the event

As part of the global event ‘Accelerating the End of Hunger and Malnutrition’ in Bangkok, the 2018 Global Nutrition Report invites you to attend and participate in in the side event ‘‘Shining a Light on Transformative Action: Regional Perspectives’.

The 2018 Global Nutrition Report reviews existing processes, highlights progress in combating malnutrition, identifies challenges and proposes ways to solve them. Through this, the report guides action, builds accountability and sparks increased commitment to furthering the progress that can reduce malnutrition much faster.

The side-event will focus on critical steps needed to speed up progress on tackling malnutrition in all its forms, and will include an address from Hideya Yamada, Vice President, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). A panel discussion will be followed by a Q&A session.

Speakers include:

• Dr Emorn Udomkesmalee, Senior Advisor, Institute of Nutrition. Mahidol University & Co-Chair of the 2018 Global Nutrition Report
• Professor Joyce Kinabo, Professor (Human Nutrition), Fellow International Union of Nutritional Sciences (FIUNS), Sokoine University of Agriculture, President of the Federation of African Nutrition Societies.
• Brave Ndisale, Director/ Strategic Programme Leader, Food Security and Nutrition (FAO)
• Dr Rina Agustina, Chair of Human Nutrition Research Centre of the Indonesian Medical Education and Research Institute
• Senator Guido Girardi (Senate of the Republic of Chile)

Join us for a unique opportunity to discover the latest findings on combating malnutrition and discuss your thoughts with leaders in the field.

For more information please contact Amy Cox, Engagement & Policy Officer at Development Initiatives.

Time: 4pm – 7pm (GMT)

Location: The Centre for Food Policy, City, University of London, Northampton Square, London, EC1V 0HB (Lecture Theatre B200)

Register for the event

As part of The Centre for Food Policy’s Food Thinkers series, the 2018 Global Nutrition Report invites you to attend and participate in the UK launch of this year’s report.

The 2018 Global Nutrition Report reviews existing processes, highlights progress in combating malnutrition, identifies challenges and proposes ways to solve them. Through this, the report guides action, builds accountability and sparks increased commitment to furthering the progress that can reduce malnutrition much faster.

The event will include an address from Minister of State at the Department for International Development Alistair Burt, a panel debate on the impact of unhealthy diets as a cause of ill health around the world and a Q&A session. It will be followed by a networking reception.

Speakers include:

• Professor Corinna Hawkes, Professor of Food Policy, Director, Centre for Food Policy
• Dr Jess Fanzo, the Bloomberg Distinguished Associate Professor of Global Food & Agricultural Policy
• Johanna Ralston, CEO of World Obesity Federation
• Katherine Richards, Head of Hunger & Nutrition (Save the Children)

Join us for a unique opportunity to discover the latest findings on malnutrition and discuss your thoughts with leaders in the field.

For more information please contact Amy Cox, Engagement & Policy Officer at Development Initiatives.

Date: 29 November 2018

Location: Bangkok, Thailand

The Global Nutrition Report is the world’s foremost publication on the status of malnutrition around the world. It acts as a stock-take on the world’s nutrition – globally, regionally and country by country – and on efforts to improve it. It tracks progress on global nutrition targets ranging from diet-related non-communicable diseases to maternal, infant and young child nutrition.

The 2018 Global Nutrition Report reviews existing processes, highlights progress in combating malnutrition, identifies challenges and proposes ways to solve them. Through this, the report guides action, builds accountability and sparks increased commitment to furthering the progress that can reduce malnutrition much faster.

It is researched, analysed and written by the Chairs of an Independent Expert Group (IEG) of world-leading academics, researchers and government representatives. The IEG is consulted on, input and review the report and are involved in its development. A wider Stakeholder Group – drawn from government, donor, civil society, multilateral and private sector organisations – provides strategic leadership of the report.

Corinna Hawkes, Jessica Fanzo and Emorn Udomkesmalee continue to serve as Co-Chairs of the group and are joined by:

Anushree Shiroor, Senior Policy Advocacy Officer (Nutrition) at RESULTS UK

Ashkan Afshin, Assistant Professor (Global Health) at University of Washington

Camila Corvalán, Assistant Professor, Obesity and chronic diseases at the Instituto de Nutrición y Tecnología de los Alimentos department of the University of Chile

Carmel Dolan, Technical Director at the Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN)

Chika Hayashi, Senior Advisor, Monitoring and Statistics at UNICEF

Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies

Dominic Schofield, President, GAIN Canada and Senior Technical Advisor of Policy and Programs at GAIN

Jane Battersby, Senior Researcher at the University of Cape Town

John McArthur, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution and Senior Advisor, UN Foundation

Jorge Fonseca, Programme Adviser, at the Food and Agriculture Organization

Kevin Chen, Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute

Laurence Grummer-Strawn, Technical Officer at the World Health Organization

Lorena Allemendi, Director of Politics of Nutrition at Fundación Interamericana del Corazón Argentina

Mariachiara Di Cesare, Senior Lecturer in Public Health at Middlesex University London

Obey Assery, Director of Coordination of Government Business at the Government of Tanzania

Phillip Baker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Deakin University, Australia

Zulfiqar Bhutta, Co-Director, Director of Research at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and Aga Khan University

The IEG is responsible for the content, data and analysis of the report, is accountable for the quality and independence of its conclusions, and is answerable to the Stakeholder Group.

Find out more about the IEG and its members.

Transitions toward urban living, the freer flow of capital and culture, and new agricultural and processing technologies have transformed food systems around the world over the past half century. Perhaps more than anything, homogenisation has come to define this transformation. The composition of global food supplies has become more similar in recent decades, and just a handful of foods now account for most of the calories we consume. Uniform, high-input farms, the hallmark of modern intensive agriculture, have produced an abundance of food unimaginable at the start of the last century. Yet, a healthy diet remains out of reach or unrealised for billions worldwide.

Monotonous, staple-based diets are still the norm for poor households in low-income countries, while more diverse diets, high in calories and ultra-processed foods, and lacking in fruits, vegetables, and legumes, are on the rise in every corner of the globe, cross-cutting social and economic divisions. Indeed, unhealthy diets are the largest single risk factor for the global burden of disease. The extent to which simplified farming systems may be driving these unhealthy dietary patterns is not clear. However, there is reason to believe that more diverse farms can support healthy diets in several different ways.

First, diversified farms can improve the diversity, and thereby nutrient adequacy, of diets of smallholder farming households that raise crops for their own consumption. Across many settings, more diversified farms are associated with more varied family diets. The size of this relationship is small, and some evidence suggests that adding new crop species to farms that are already highly diverse will not improve diets. Yet, among farms with just one or two crops, the situation for many poor subsistence farming families, a marginal increase in crop diversity can yield a proportionally larger return to diet diversity. It is also likely that policies or programs that intervene to diversify farms with the explicit goal of improving diets, would see larger positive impacts on diets, especially if combined with nutrition behavior change activities.

Second, more diverse farms can generate income for farming families that can be used to purchase more diverse foods. Certainly, investing in a small number of cash crops can increase incomes from agriculture, and there are risks that diversification could sacrifice gains from specialisation. Yet, crop diversification need not mean lost income. In practice, risk-averse smallholders often maintain subsistence production while diversifying into commercial crops. In this way, diversification can afford smallholders access to new markets for their production, additional sources of income, and indirect routes to improving diets through increased purchasing power. Indeed, more highly diversified farms tend to have higher incomes from agriculture, and the benefits of farm diversification for diet diversity are consistent across more and less market-oriented farms.

Finally, more diverse farms can contribute to more diverse consumer food markets. Even subsistence farmers in most settings purchase most of their food. Therefore, diversifying the small- to medium-sized farms that locally supply markets in low-income countries is essential for expanding access to healthy, diverse foods. Increasing production of fruits, vegetables and legumes is especially important given that the supply of these crops in nearly all world regions is not sufficient to meet recommended intakes. Yet diversifying agricultural production alone will not guarantee greater consumption of diverse foods. Post-production processing, and how foods are substituted and marketed relative to one another strongly shape the nutritional quality of foods, as well as food prices and consumer preferences. Hence, complementary policies are needed to ensure that the potential nutritional benefits of agricultural diversification persist throughout supply chains.

To be certain, diversifying farms is just one part of a larger effort that is needed to promote healthy diets through changes to food systems. Yet it is a vital one, and underpins the need to re-envision farms as agroecosystems, and cultivate an agriculture that sustainably supports multiple ecosystem services.

Andrew Jones is a public health nutritionist interested in understanding how food systems impact the diets and nutritional status of vulnerable populations in low- and middle-income countries. Andrew is currently the John G. Searle Assistant Professor of Nutritional Sciences in the School of Public Health and Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Human Growth and Development at the University of Michigan. He has worked as a consultant for several institutions, including the World Bank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and UNICEF.

Photo: ILO

Corinna Hawkes, co-chair of the GNR said, “DI’s expertise in development data and its commitment to transparency and accountability will be a real asset to the GNR as we seek to increase its value as a tool for those committed to tackling malnutrition. DI’s work on the 2017 report highlighted their dedication to making it a success and we are looking forward to seeing its reach continue to grow in 2018 and beyond.”

Harpinder Collacott, Executive Director at Development Initiatives said “We know that the Sustainable Development Goals will not succeed without ending malnutrition – making it a key priority in global development. The GNR is therefore a vital resource providing independent high-quality evidence and practical recommendations on combating malnutrition globally. DI has played a supportive role with the GNR since its inception, and we are delighted to host the report for the next three years and build on the success it has had since first publication in 2014.”

Notes to editors

Contact

Anna Hope, Head of Communications at Development Initiatives
E: Anna.Hope@devinit.org
T: +44 (0) 1179 272 505

About the Global Nutrition Report

The Global Nutrition Report is an independently produced annual stock-take of the state of the world’s nutrition. The report tracks global nutrition targets on maternal, infant and young child nutrition and on diet-related non-communicable diseases adopted by member states of the World Health Organization as well as governments’ delivery against their commitments. It aims to make it easier for governments and other stakeholders to make – and deliver on – high-impact commitments to end malnutrition in all its forms.

Previous reports can be viewed at www.globalnutritionreport.org

About Development Initiatives

Development Initiatives (DI) is an independent international development organisation that focuses on the role of data in driving poverty eradication and sustainable development. Our mission is to ensure that decisions about the allocation of finance and resources result in an end to poverty, increase the resilience of the world’s most vulnerable people, and ensure no one is left behind. We work to make sure these decisions are underpinned by good quality, transparent data and evidence on poverty and resources, and lead to increased accountability and sustainable long-term outcomes.

The IEG is responsible for drafting the report, led by the co-chairs. It ensures the quality of the data, develops the narrative around the data, and is held accountable for the quality and independence of the GNR and the process that produces it. The length of appointment on the IEG is three years, with possibility of extension.

The current IEG membership can be found here. Corinna Hawkes, Jessica Fanzo and Emorn Udomkesmalee serve as Co-Chairs and continued IEG members for the GNR. The GNR and Stakeholder Group are looking to “refresh” the IEG to get new areas of expertise and fresh perspectives on the content of the GNR moving forward into 2018 and beyond.

What we are looking for:

We are looking for certain areas of expertise, but are also looking for a breadth of experience that cover urban and rural opportunities and challenges; experience across all income countries including high-, middle- and low-income countries; those who have a deep understanding of the multiple malnutrition vulnerabilities; and programmatic, policy or research/methods/evaluation experience. We want people who work in nutrition, but also outside of nutrition that bring a different set of expertise and view point.

We welcome individuals with these areas of expertise who work in academia, research, civil society, government, international agencies and private sector.

Key areas of expertise needed on the IEG:

• Overweight, obesity and diet related chronic/non-communicable disease, including data, interventions, policies to address them, and advocacy.
• Underlying determinants of stunting and wasting in rural and urban settings.
• Resilience building and humanitarian responses to nutrition.
• Micronutrient deficiencies.
• The role of diets in malnutrition in all its forms, including measurement and interventions.
• Lifespan, growth and development in the context of nutrition, including developmental origins.
• “Essential nutrition actions,” including coverage and delivery platforms.
• Epidemiology, target setting, indicators/metrics, monitoring and evaluation
• International development issues (e.g. poverty, conflict, environment) and relation to nutrition.
• Financing within international development, including innovative funding mechanisms
• Political economy, power dynamics and governance across actors that impact nutrition.
• Food systems, agriculture and climate change.
• Health systems.
• Women’s empowerment, gender equality, adolescent girls.
• Public private partnerships and other innovative collaborations.

Responsibilities of the IEG members

• To contribute to positioning of GNR in the global nutrition landscape and thematic planning of the annual report. This involves in-person meetings (requiring international travel) and group phone calls.
• To contribute to the data, data analysis and/or narrative of the report, bringing perspectives based on expertise and experience.
• To review drafts in a timely manner, providing detailed comments and scrutinizing the quality of the data, data analysis, and narrative.
• To contribute to the communications and public outreach of the report each year, through leveraging relationships, making presentations and having an ambassadorial role.

Expectations of the IEG members:

• Members are expected to engage actively in the work of the group and maintain its standards of quality and independence with approximately 10 days contributed per year. Any member unable to fulfill this responsibility will be asked to step down and a replacement made by the Stakeholder Group. Appointed individuals will be expected to exercise autonomous, professional judgment. The individuals will not serve as representatives of their respective organisations but in an independent, personal and individual capacity. All members must accept the responsibility of being collectively accountable for the quality of the report, must be prepared to answer publicly for the decisions made on data presentation and interpretation, and engage in intellectual debate on the conclusions given.
• It is expected that members will leverage their professional networks and capitalise on opportunities to promote the Report. Each member of the IEG will act as individual ambassadors of the Report and play an active part in communicating and disseminating it through available communication channels, events and presentations.
• Experts serving on the IEG must complete a declaration of Interest that includes any financial, professional or other interest that may influence the ability to be impartial and independent when serving on the IEG. This includes any interest that may affect, or may reasonably be perceived to affect, your objectivity and independence. For example, if the organisation you work for, or organisations for whom you have consulted, have interests in factors that influence nutrition, it may reasonably be perceived that you would consider these interests when serving on the IEG, and this should thus be declared.

Nominations:

Please submit a CV and 200 word statement why this person is being nominated or why you are selecting yourself. The statement should show how the person is suitable for the IEG in light of the expertise, responsibilities and expectations listed above. Please submit your nominations to jfanzo@gmail.com by January 25, 2018.

Selection Process:

Chairs plus three Stakeholder Group members (representing different constituencies) to be approved by the Stakeholder Group, by February 10, 2018. Nominations who are selected in the first round will be asked to submit a declaration of interests to be considered for final selection. The aim is to have up to 15 members over a three-year term.

Acute malnutrition (combining both moderate and severe forms[1])  results in five million preventable child deaths each year, and while more than 70% of those treated for severe acute malnutrition recover successfully, less than 20% of children suffering are able to access the treatment they need. For the first time in decades, the global burden of acute malnutrition is now going up and with increasing famines throughout the world, ensuring effective, affordable treatment is available is a global priority. In this, the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition, we have the knowledge, ability and resources to address this, so how do we make it a reality?

A Global Effort to Catalyse Action

No Wasted Lives is putting the prevention and treatment of acute malnutrition back on the mainstream

Copyright Action Against Hunger

health and nutrition agenda.  Our aim is to double the proportion of children treated for severe acute malnutrition by 2020. This Coalition, including Action Against Hunger, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the European Commission, UNICEF, the UK government and the World Food Programme, promotes a joined up approach to child health and nutrition.

No Wasted lives aims to:

• Reduce the cost of curing a child suffering from severe acute malnutrition.
• Develop new treatment approaches to improve access and treatment coverage.
• Include policies to scale-up acute malnutrition programming in key bilateral donor strategies.
• Adopt national nutrition policies that promote prevention and community-based treatment.
• Increase financial pledges to support actions to address acute malnutrition.

Building and Using the Evidence Base at Regional & Country Level

The No Wasted Lives Coalition is working in regions and countries with the highest needs to ensure that key bottlenecks are addressed and treatment programmes are integrated into national health systems with sustainable and long term planning. A critical pillar of the effort to accelerate this programmatic scale-up is driven by the generation and use of evidence. Linked with strong regional and country-level advocacy and donor alignment and focus on what works effectively at scale, we can drive global action.

Identifying and Driving Research Priorities

The Coalition of Research and Technical Advice on Severe Acute Malnutrition (CORTASAM) was established by No Wasted Lives to help fill gaps in the existing evidence base, to support scale-up of effective programmes and drive the use of evidence for action. This year the CORTASAM launched a survey to consult practitioners on the research priorities that are critical to achieve measurable improvements in the quality, effectiveness, scale and sustainability of programmes addressing acute malnutrition in children under five years of age. Details of the respondents and priority research areas can be found on the No Wasted Lives website.

Making Data & Evidence More Accessible

Aiming to highlight the progress that has been made and best practices across acute malnutrition programming, the Coalition supported the launch of a new website earlier this year: the State of Severe Malnutrition. It provides a comprehensive up-to-date overview of all qualitative and quantitative resources on acute malnutrition from the enabling environment, to supply and demand, and quality of treatment, with both a global perspective and country-specific overviews.

Join us

In order to reach the ambitious goal of doubling the proportion of children annually receiving treatment for severe acute malnutrition by 2020 we need to act together. No Wasted Lives provides a platform to do this.

We need to increase our collective knowledge and capacity to act. We have convened a coalition of partners to kick-start this journey, but we can’t do it alone. We are inviting you to join us. Find out more on the No Wasted Lives website at nowastedlives.org and get involved by sharing data or submit resources, research and events on the State of Severe Malnutrition Website.

[1] Moderate acute is defined as low weight for height (between -2 and -3 WHZ) or low mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC between 125mm and 115mm). Severe acute malnutrition is defined as very low weight for height (<-3 WHZ) or very low mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC<115mm) and/or the presence of nutritional oedema.

• Global Nutrition Report 2017 finds ‘significant burdens’ of malnutrition in all 140 countries studied
• Urgent, integrated response needed if world to meet any of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals

Milan - Almost every country in the world now faces a serious nutrition-related challenge, whether stemming from undernutrition or obesity, the authors of The Global Nutrition Report 2017 said today.

In all 140 countries studied, the report found ‘significant burdens’ of three important forms of malnutrition used as a indicator of broader trends: 1) childhood stunting, children too short for their age due to lack of nutrients, suffering irreversible damage to brain capacity, 2) anaemia in women of reproductive age, a serious condition that can have long term health impacts for mother and child, and 3) overweight adult women, a rising concern as women are disproportionately affected by the global obesity epidemic.
The report found the vast majority (88%) of countries studied face a serious burden of two or three of these forms of malnutrition. It highlights the damaging impact this burden is having on broader global development efforts.

“The world can’t afford not to act on nutrition or we risk putting the brakes on human development as a whole,” said Corinna Hawkes, Co-Chair of the Global Nutrition Report’s Independent Expert Group and Director of the Centre for Food Policy at City, University London. “We will not achieve any of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs) by the 2030 deadline unless there is a critical step change in our response to malnutrition in all its forms. Equally, we need action throughout the goals to tackle the many causes of malnutrition.”

The Global Nutrition Report 2017 calls for nutrition to be placed at the heart of efforts to end poverty, fight disease, raise educational standards and tackle climate change. "We know that a well-nourished child is one third more likely to escape poverty,” said Jessica Fanzo, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Global Food and Agriculture Policy & Ethics at Johns Hopkins University and Global Nutrition Report CoChair. “They will learn better in school, be healthier and grow into productive contributors to their economies. Good nutrition provides the brainpower, the ‘grey matter infrastructure’ to build the economies of the future.”

Emorn Udomkesmalee, Co-Chair of the Global Nutrition Report’s Independent Expert Group and Senior Advisor, Institute of Nutrition, Mahidol University, Thailand, said: “It’s not just about more money – although that is important - it’s also about breaking down silos and addressing malnutrition in a more joined-up way alongside all the other drivers of development. There’s a powerful multiplier effect here that we have to harness.”

The report found that overweight and obesity are on the rise in almost every country, with 2 billion of the world’s 7 billion people now overweight or obese and a less than 1 per cent chance of meeting the global target of halting the rise in obesity and diabetes by 2025.

• At least 41 million children under five are overweight, with the problem affecting high and lower income countries alike
• At least 10 million children in Africa are now classified as overweight
• One third of North American men (33%) and women (34%) are obese

Rates of undernutrition in children are decreasing, the report said, with recent gains in some countries. But global progress is not fast enough to meet internationally agreed nutrition goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target 2.2 to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030.

• 155 million under-fives are stunted; Africa is the only region where absolute numbers are rising, due to population growth
• 52 million children worldwide are defined as wasted, meaning they do not weigh enough for their height.

Rising rates of anaemia in women of reproductive age are also cited as a concern with almost one in three women affected worldwide and no country on track to meet global targets.
“Historically, maternal anaemia and child undernutrition have been seen as separate problems to obesity and non-communicable diseases,” said Ms Fanzo. “The reality is they are intimately connected and driven by inequalities everywhere in the world. That’s why governments and their partners need to tackle them holistically, not as distinct problems.”

Donor funding for nutrition rose by just two per cent in 2015, to US$867 million, representing a slight fall in the overall percentage of global aid. The report says funding needs to be ‘turbo charged’ and calls for a tripling of global investments in nutrition, to $70bn over 10 years to tackle childhood stunting, wasting and anaemia and to increase breastfeeding rates. Crucially, donors are only spending 0.01 per cent of official development assistance on diet related Non-Communicable Diseases, a ‘disturbingly low’ level.

Pledges to invest in nutrition must be ‘concrete’ and ‘acted upon’, not ‘empty rhetoric’, the report said. Of the 203 commitments made at the Nutrition for Growth Summit in 2013 those most likely to be classified as ‘on course’ are the UN agencies’ at 86 per cent, followed by ‘other organisations’ at 75 per cent and NGO policy commitments at 73 per cent.

The coming weeks provide an opportunity for renewed action and pledges, as part of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2026). These include the Global Nutrition Summit in Milan on November 4 and the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Global Gathering in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire from November 7-9.

The report found there is a critical need for better data on nutrition - many countries don’t have enough data to track the nutrition targets they signed up to and to identify who is being left behind.

Ends

Notes to Editors

Media contact: Helen Palmer on +44(0)7912 242394 and hpalmer@webershandwick.com

About the Global Nutrition Report
The Global Nutrition Report is an independently produced annual stock-take of the state of the world’s nutrition. The report tracks global nutrition targets on maternal, infant and young child nutrition and on diet related Non-Communicable Diseases adopted by member states of the World Health Organization as well as governments’ delivery against their commitments. It aims to make it easier for governments and other stakeholders to make - and deliver on - high impact commitments to end malnutrition in all its forms. The report can be viewed at: www.globalnutritionreport.org