The Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) was a high-level intergovernmental meeting that focused global attention on addressing malnutrition in all its forms that took place in Rome in November 2014. Over 2200 participants attended the meeting͕ including representatives from more than 170 governments, 150 representatives from civil society and nearly 100 from the business community.
The two main outcome documents, the Rome Declaration on Nutrition and Framework for Action, were endorsed by participating governments at the conference, committing world leaders to establishing national policies aimed at eradicating malnutrition and transforming food systems to make nutritious diets available to all.
I would like to commend initiatives such as The Lancet Nutrition Series, the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, the REACH Initiative, for shedding light on actions that need to be undertaken in order to improve food and nutrition security in the continent.
The Rome Declaration calls for the UN system, including the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) to work more effectively together to support national and regional efforts, and enhance international cooperation and development assistance to accelerate progress in addressing malnutrition.
The Framework for Action also adopts the existing World Health Assembly 2025 global targets for improving maternal, infant and young child nutrition and the targets for non-communicable disease risk factor reduction to be achieved by 2025. It is a voluntary framework, composed of 60 recommendations.
The Declaration and Framework were subsequently endorsed at the 68th session of the World Health Assembly in May 2015 and welcomed by the United Nations General Assembly in July 2015.