Key insights from Network briefing - Nutrition for Growth

Onno van Manen from GAIN opened the session with reflections on the N4G Summit’s potential impact, focusing on whether it will deliver meaningful political commitments, secure funding, and strengthen partnerships. Success will depend on leveraging existing financial commitments, including those from donors like the Netherlands. The Summit has six key thematic priorities including food systems transformation, healthier diets, and crisis response, with six working groups that shape the agenda. However, logistical challenges remain, which has caused some delay in the availability of practical information.

With only five years left to achieve global Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and deliver on the global nutrition targets, urgency is growing. Instead of setting new objectives, the focus now is on what can be realistically achieved in the remaining time. However, shifting geopolitical landscapes raise uncertainty over leadership, particularly whether key players like the U.S.A. (who is supposed to host the next Summit) will continue their commitments.

The session then moved on to pitches from stakeholders across various sectors: Marijke de Graaf from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Samuel Chor Alier from the Child Rights Civil Society Coalition South Sudan and Right2Grow, his colleague Steven Lanting from Right2Grow, Yvonne Bakken from DSM-firmenich, and Efi Chatzinikolaou from ATNi - all shared insights on their expectations and contributions to the Summit.

Commitments by the Netherlands

At the Nutrition for Growth 2021 Summit in Tokyo, the Netherlands committed €400 million until 2030 as part of its Food Security budget. This funding aims to provide 32 million women and young children with year-round access to healthy diets. The pledge excludes humanitarian aid and contributions to multilateral organisations working on food systems transformation. Furthermore, the Netherlands continues to collaborate with EU countries, although commitments vary in scope and definition — e.g. Germany committed €580 million for the period 2022-2025 and is reviewing its pledge, while Ireland remains a key partner, the country will spend €800 million over the next five years on nutrition, equating to €160 million a year. A Team Europe compendium report on nutrition will soon be released, summarising financial commitments and ongoing projects, and showcasing Team Europe’s collaborative, multi-sectoral, and rights-based approach to nutrition.

There have been efforts to encourage the Netherlands' National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM, Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport) to express national commitments towards sustainable healthy diets. While this is too short-term for the upcoming Summit, it could present an opportunity for future events.

Private sector and civil society involvement and accountability

Multiple speakers emphasised the importance of non-state actor involvement in advancing global nutrition. Communities play a crucial role in strengthening accountability at the local level, while the responsible engagement of the private sector is also recognised as a key factor in driving progress.

Right2Grow highlighted the importance of budget monitoring and expenditure tracking. In South Sudan for example, the stronger engagement of communities in budget processes did result in improved accountability and in increased government allocation to food security and WASH. The N4G Accountability Taskforce has made recommendations on enhancing civil society involvement in ensuring commitments are met, emphasising their role as key partners. Local partner organisations will showcase solutions at the N4G Solutions Village, with panel discussions on accountability and financial support. In recent months, national authorities have been working on developing and submitting their financial and political commitments in view of improved nutrition.

ATNi is focusing on private sector accountability and engagement by co-chairing the Private Sector Working Group, which is pushing for private sector commitments to be presented during the N4G (submission deadline: March 7th). Commitments received after this deadline and before June 30th will be included in the Global Nutrition Report. During the Summit, ATNi will co-host a high-level side event involving the private sector and other partners focused on developing a business case for nutrition (March 26th, hybrid). As main output, the Paris Declaration on Business and Nutrition 2030 will be presented during the Summit, outlining a shared vision, the regulatory environment and financial frameworks needed to enable businesses, governments, investments, civil society and international organisations to establish an improved Nutrition Economy - including a roadmap for continued dialogue post N4G up to 2030.

DSM-firmenich highlighted the importance of addressing the micronutrient gap and acknowledged that the process of making commitments takes time, it takes a lot of alignment including setting the right targets. They advocate for increased private sector inclusion in shaping nutrition solutions, emphasising that innovation can only be advanced if the private sector is also actively involved in discussions and decision-making to be able to take an innovator focus and change the processes to fit the type of commitments that governments and others are making. Highlighted the importance of having investors recognising and prioritising commitment beyond major events as N4G. DSM-firmenich has submitted their commitment for the N4G, committing to reaching one billion people by 2030, focussing amongst others on nutrition solutions, fortification and public health supplements.

The session was concluded by a short discussion which expressed the importance of:

• Budget cuts and their impact: There is growing concern about development cooperation budget cuts (in NL and internationally) leading to the reallocation of funds from nutrition development programs to emergency response efforts. The discussion highlighted the importance of the international nutrition sector actively raising awareness about the potential risks of such shifts and advocating for sustained investment in long-term nutrition development.

• Tracking and following up on commitments: There is acknowledgement of the importance of following up on commitments, while all stakeholders realise the complexity involved in tracking commitments made and its progress.

• Corporate responsibility; Some companies, including innovators who pledged in Tokyo, are taking steps toward improving nutrition outcomes, while others have yet to engage. The private sector has a role to play, but there are also concerns regarding marketing practices and past impacts. Many of the commitments have been made in a somewhat isolated way, it is important to recognise and make the commitment with a broader stakeholder group. Giving the commitments more substance to recognise the importance of nutrition beyond the N4G event, bringing in investors and making it more relevant for businesses. Also greater participation in multi-sector dialogues is needed to help drive innovation and solutions.

• Inclusive participation: The discussion highlighted the importance of representation and engagement from a global audience in the Nutrition for Growth Summit. The main event on March 27-28th will be a meeting of government delegations with selected delegates from other stakeholder groups. Side-events may offer opportunities to engage in discussions for non-state actors present in Paris. Live streaming will allow those who are not invited to attend in-person to listen-in.

How to stay up to date?

NWGN and NFP will continue to share information and insights in the coming weeks in preparation for the N4G.

List of key websites and overview pages :

• Nutrition for Growth official website

• N4G overview document of what to expect

• Nutrition for Growth: overview of the programme including side-events