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Financing for Nutrition

Powering change through the smartest investment

Sustainable Financing for Nutrition

To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, we must intensify our efforts to combat all forms of malnutrition. This requires a significant boost in sustainable funding for nutrition and smarter use of resources to maximize nutrition benefits across various sectors.

Over the past decade, the financial landscape for nutrition has evolved, thanks to the efforts of SUN country governments and their partners. Many SUN countries have developed and costed nutrition plans that identify priority actions across multiple sectors, including health, water, education and social protection. In addition, many of these plans also identify opportunities to improve the public financial management system to better support cross-cutting areas like nutrition. Since 2013 many countries have also made commitments during Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summits, where collective progress towards eliminating malnutrition is tracked.

However, much work remains, as most countries are not on track to meet their World Health Assembly nutrition targets or their nutrition-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The global Investment Framework for Nutrition outlines the priority, evidence-based interventions and the estimated scale-up costs needed to meet these goals, including the accumulated benefits of investing in nutrition, for human health and for the global economy. These evidence-based interventions are necessarily multi-sectoral, requiring that nutrition is effectively mainstreamed into investments in agriculture, climate action, social protection, education, and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) programs, among others. Achieving this requires not only financial resources but also policy commitments to ensure nutrition is a core part of program designs.

What is nutrition financing?

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Nutrition financing includes all funding channels - public and private, from domestic sources and external - that goes toward ending hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. This includes money spent to ensure people have access to nutritious, safe foods and to support services like healthcare, education, and social programs that promote healthy diets. Nutrition financing also strengthens food systems, helping communities withstand challenges that threaten food security and nutrition.

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024

Six years from 2030, hunger and food insecurity trends are not yet moving in the right direction to end hunger and food insecurity (SDG Target 2.1) by 2030. The indicators of progress towards global...
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Why is financing for nutrition important?

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Most countries are currently not on track to meet their SDG nutrition targets or World Health Assembly goals. The Global Investment Framework for Nutrition outlines the costs over the next 10 years needed to scale up essential nutrition interventions to meet the SDGs. It's also crucial to integrate nutrition goals into other sectoral investments, such as agriculture, climate action, social protection, education, and WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) programs. Achieving this requires not only financial resources but also policy commitments that ensure nutrition is a core part of program designs. Evidence is growing on how these programs can drive nutrition progress.

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million episodes of wasting.

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million cases of anemia among children younger than age five.

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million cases of maternal anemia.

Investment Framework for Nutrition 2024

Investment Framework for Nutrition 2024

In 2017, the Investment Framework for Nutrition set the stage for transformative nutrition investments, culminating in strong donor and country commitments at the 2021 Tokyo Nutrition for Growth (N4G)...
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Investing in nutrition has far-reaching impacts: it saves lives, reduces illness, and fuels positive growth for individuals and entire communities. Beyond health, nutrition investment boosts education outcomes, economic productivity, and resilience. In fact, every dollar invested in nutrition can yield up to $23 in returns, making it one of the smartest investments for a healthier, more prosperous and sustainable future for all.

“For every $1 invested in addressing undernutrition, a return of $23 is expected.” 

(World Bank, 2024, p. 10) 

 

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“The full scale-up of interventions to address undernutrition is estimated to generate $2.4 trillion in economic benefits, with a benefit-cost ratio of 23”

Shekar, M., Okamura, K.S., Vilar-Compte, M., Dell’Aira, C. (September, 2024)

Overview investment framework for nutrition 2024. World Bank

What is the way forward?

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The SUN Finance Agenda

The SUN Finance Agenda, endorsed by the SUN Lead Group and ExCom, acknowledges the need to reshape the financial framework for preventing and treating malnutrition, especially in fragile contexts. SUN Countries, with support from their partners, must lead this transformation to achieve sustainable nutrition financing goals.

Leveraging nutrition financing to save lives and accelerate the SDGs

The role of nutrition is increasingly pivotal in a world dealing with challenges like inequalities, conflicts, and a pandemic. This paper analyzes the context of nutrition financing, highlights three...
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Finance Capacity Development Platform for SUN Countries

FCDP is a SUN Movement resource available to all 66 SUN Countries. The platform aims to reshape the nutrition financing landscape by inspiring and igniting government leaders to elevate nutrition financing as a priority and accelerate impact across sectors.

The financing landscape for nutrition has evolved significantly over the last decade, driven by actions of SUN country governments and their partners. However, there is much more to be done as most countries are not on track to achieve their SDG nutrition targets by 2030. The SUN Finance Agenda, endorsed by the SUN Lead Group and the SUN Executive Committee, recognizes that in order to meet increasing needs in countries (especially those in fragile situations) the financing architecture for malnutrition prevention and treatment must be reshaped. This process of transforming the nutrition financing landscape must be led by SUN Countries, with support from partners to help countries achieve their sustainable financing goals.

Theory of change

Vision of Success: FCDP Supports SUN Countries in the Global Effort to Transform Nutrition Financing

If we...

  • Continuously assess bottlenecks to nutrition financing and SUN countries' demand
  • Strengthen the local expert base to respond to country needs through access to practical tools & resources with coaching and regional learning exchange
  • Facilitate government's knowledge of how to access external funding opportunities for nutrition
  • Leverage existing partnerships to expand and elevate nutrition financing

If we...

  • Support government officials to think innovatively about the role of nutrition in development planning
  • Articulate key areas countries need to strengthen to improve financial management for nutrition and identify investment opportunities
  • Empower SUN focal points to accelerate progress on their country priorities
  • Strengthen country-level nutrition financing processes and systems across sectors
  • Strengthen country-led resource mobilization

Which will lead to...

  • Greater sustainability of funding to ensure programs that offer important nutrition actions are uninterrupted and government-owned
  • Increased funding for nutrition aligned to country priorities across sectors and all sources-public and external
  • More strategic use of funding that ensures government-owned policies and programs across sectors enhance the achievement of food and nutrition targets

Supporting SUN 3.0 Strategic Objective 3

Build and strengthen country capacity to develop, prioritise, finance, implement and track country actions through strengthened technical assistance and knowledge management

 

FCDP’s vision of success is to support SUN countries in the global effort to transform nutrition financing with the following long-term goals:

Greater sustainability

of funding to ensure programs that offer important nutrition actions are uninterrupted and government owned.

Increased funding

for nutrition aligned to country priorities across sectors and all sources—public and external.

More strategic use of funding

that ensures government-owned policies and programs across sectors enhance the achievement of food and nutrition targets.

FCDP is hosted by Results for Development (R4D), with partners Spark Health Africa and Health, Strategy and Delivery Foundation (HSDF), and the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP).

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