Giving Compass' Take:

• News Deeply discusses the World Bank Investment Framework for Nutrition with Meera Shakar, the lead author of the report which focuses on how to find creative financing for global nutrition. 

• Why do you think nutrition is an investment issue rather than a welfare issue, or more than that as Shekar mentions in the interview?

• Read about how donors and impact investors can help build a better food system. 

Deeply Talks series came on the first anniversary of the release of the World Bank’s Investment Framework for Nutrition. The document was the first to set a price tag – $7 billion – on reaching the global malnutrition targets by their 2025 deadline. Meera Shekar, the report’s lead author, joined us to discuss how the framework has shifted the global discussion around nutrition financing.

Talking to Andrew Green in this Deeply Talks episode, Shekar explains why the bank focused its framework on nutrition-specific interventions, while acknowledging the role multisectoral efforts can play.

Malnutrition Deeply: It has been one year since the launch of the Investment Framework for Nutrition, which was really a landmark in quantifying nutrition financing. I’m hoping we might start just by talking about what led you to create the framework and the impact it has had in the past year.

Meera Shekar: About a decade ago, we released a report called “Repositioning Nutrition as Central to Development.” And soon after that there was a Lancet series on nutrition. And all of this has led to the argument that nutrition’s not just a welfare issue, it’s an investment issue.

The challenge was, when people came back to us and said, “OK. It’s an investment issue. How much do we need to invest and what will we pay for it?”

The investment framework really focuses on the evidence. What impact can we buy and what will it cost to get there? And the big picture message from that is really that we need about $7 billion a year, globally, from donor financing, domestic resources, which are absolutely critical, as well as innovative financing from groups such as the Power of Nutrition.

Read the full article about investment in nutrition by Andrew Green at News Deeply