The 2015 Global Nutrition Report has been launched

On 22 September 2015, the second Global Nutrition Report (GNR) was launched at a special event in New York. The evening event provided an opportunity for the global nutrition community to engage in a dynamic conversation following the presentation of new evidence, progress and the future of nutrition.

The GNR is a comprehensive summary and scorecard on both global and country level progress on all forms of nutrition, it is the second in an annual series which covers nutrition status and program coverage as well as underlying determinants such as food security; water, sanitation, and hygiene; resource allocations; and institutional and policy changes – globally, and for 193 countries.

In his presentation, Lawrence Haddad, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies thanked the three Co-chairs, 20 experts, 11 different donors, 70 different authors and the hundreds of different reviewers who led to the development of the 2015 GNR.

“The forces that create malnutrition are very powerful, to overcome malnutrition we need equally powerful alliances and forces”

– Lawrence Haddad, Senior Research Fellow, the Institute of Development Studies

The 2015 edition builds and reflects on new opportunities, actions, progress, accountability, and data for nutrition, with the aim to build greater commitment to improved nutrition in all countries. New findings and recommendations introduced in the 2015 GNR include:

• The critical relationship between climate change and nutrition
• A focus on ways in which food systems can better benefit people and planet
• A focus on the roles of business and how it can play a pivotal role
• Fresh data covering all forms of malnutrition – from under nutrition in young children to nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases in adults, and from stunting to obesity

Hear from Graça Machel at the 2015 Global Nutrition Report launch

“Whenever you want to talk of development of people, you have to get nutrition at the center of it”

“There are still many people who believe nutrition is a health issue, others will think it’s an agricultural thing – you have to say, it covers literally, most of the main sectors of development.”

“It will take a generation, 30 years minimum, to turn this around, it is only going to happen when leaders understand that in terms of human capital, in terms of productivity of the workforce, in terms of healthy nations, they have to change the way they look at nutrition.”

-Graça Machel, Founder of the Graça Machel Trust, Board Chair of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, African Ambassador for A Promised Renewed.

Here from Tom Arnold at the 2015 Global Nutrition Report Launch

“The SUN Movement is part of a wider effort to make real progress in nutrition.”

“It is truly amazing that it took until 2014 to have a Global Nutrition Report.”

“This report is becoming a bearer of inconvenient truths.”

“The report tries to make sure that we identify the huge cost of undernutrition, and increasingly of overnutrition, but it is also edging towards finding solutions.”

– Tom Arnold, SUN Movement Coordinator ad interim

Hear from Ertharin Cousin at the 2015 Global Nutrition Report Launch

“The reality is, we can’t do this by ourselves. Even if WFP feeds 80 million people, even if we provide more nutrition to that 80 million people, we have 7 billion people on the globe.We must embrace the cross cutting nature of nutrition.”

“We need to broaden our circle of conversation so it includes not just the actors but business leaders, both good and bad, and turn the bad into good through the pressure from the global community including the UN but more importantly from NGOs and community leaders who have a much stronger voice of what their communities need and want. That way, we can move into one circle, who are all committed to ensuring that nutrition truly is a universal opportunity.”

-Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director, United Nations World Food Programme and member of the SUN Movement Lead Group