Giving Compass' Take:

• Global Nutrition Report 2017 outlines existing shortcomings in data and funding around global nutrition, as well as opportunities for funding to make an impact. 

• How can philanthropy support rigorous data collection to offer a better picture of global nutrition? What partnerships and policy changes offer the biggest opportunities for impact? 

• Read this roadmap to SDG investing to learn how to put funding dollars to good use.  

Key Findings:

1. The world faces a grave nutrition situation – but the Sustainable Development Goals present an unprecedented opportunity to change that.
The global community is grappling with multiple burdens of malnutrition. Our analysis shows that 88% of countries for which we have data face a serious burden of either two or three forms of malnutrition (childhood stunting, anemia in women of reproductive age and/or overweight in adult women).

2. Improving nutrition will be a catalyst for achieving goals throughout the SDGs.
Our analysis shows there are five core areas that run through the SDGs which nutrition can contribute to, and in turn, benefit from:

  • sustainable food production
  • strong systems of infrastructure
  • health systems
  • equity and inclusion
  • peace and stability.

3. Tackling the underlying causes of malnutrition through the SDGs will unlock significant gains in the fight to end malnutrition.
Poor nutrition has many and varied causes which are intimately connected to work being done to accomplish other SDGs.

4. There is significant opportunity for financing a more integrated approach to improving nutrition universally.
Malnutrition has a high economic and health cost, yet not enough is spent on improving nutrition.

5. To leave no one behind, we must fill gaps and change the way we analyze and use data.
To improve nutrition universally, we need better, more regular, detailed and disaggregated data. We identify lack of data disaggregated by wealth quintile, gender, geography, age and disability as a particular barrier. National averages are not enough to see who is being left behind.

6. We must make sure commitments are concrete pledges that are acted on. Accountability mechanisms, such as the Global Nutrition Report, are designed to ensure that stated commitments are delivered in practice.

7. There is an exciting opportunity to achieve global nutrition targets while catalyzing other development goals through ‘double duty’ and ‘triple duty’ actions.
No country has been able to stop the rise in obesity. Countries with burgeoning prevalence should start early to avoid some of the mistakes of high-income neighbors. There is an opportunity to identify – and take – ‘double duty’ actions which tackle more than one form of malnutrition at once.