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	Peoples Nutrition is Not a Business by Right to Food & Nutrition Watch 2015   Commonly referred to as ‘corporate capture’, the increasing control of businesses over food systems and resources, institutions, policy spaces and governance structures, is putting human rights at great risk.   The world is witnessing this reality from the Americas to Asia, particularly since the 2008 world food crisis that shook societies across the globe. It is clear that the present economic model cannot guarantee the conditions for national governments to fulfill their human rights obligations, including the right to adequate food and nutrition.   Corporate-based approaches have led to an artificial separation of nutrition and sustainable food systems, resulting invertical, technical and product-based solutions that ignore social, economic, political, environmental, health and cultural determinants. In a world where hundreds of millions go undernourished while half a billion suffer from obesity, communities worldwide see the prevention of corporate capture as a critical issue.   Peoples’ nutritional sovereignty and core human rights principles are unalienable pillars in tackling inequity, oppression and discrimination and democratizing national and global societies.   The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2015 places nutrition under the spotlight and exposes the impact of business operations on peoples’ livelihoods. The concept of nutrition is assessed from a human rights perspective, going beyond the mere measurement of nutrients in food and human bodies to considering the socio-economic and cultural context in which human beings feed themselves.   “Peoples Nutrition Is Not a Business” explores the competing visions of nutrition, the causes of malnutrition and the policy responses, which often affect women disproportionately, both behind the scenes and in the public sphere.   It uncovers pervasive corporate abuse and impunity, and puts forward recommendations for states to prevent and punish initiatives that hamper the enjoyment of the right to adequate food and nutrition.   “As the authors of this enlightening volume of the Watch make clear, nutritional adequacy and well-being are integral dimensions of the right to adequate food—and must be dealt with as such. Peoples’ nutrition and food sovereignty risk being undermined by predatory agri-business practices that relentlessly pursue maximum profit at all costs.” - Hilal Elver, current UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food   http://www.rtfn-watch.org/ Visit the related web page
	Nutrition and the SDGs by IDS, Bread for the World, Concern, agencies   Why target 17.14 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the most important target of all, by Corinna Hawkes, Co-Chair of the Global Nutrition Report   In September 2015 the UN General Assembly adopted a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals are the successor to the Millennium Development Goals which ran from 2000 to 2015 as the world’s framework for development. The designers of the SDGs clearly had something different in mind to the MDGs. There are a lot more of them – 17 SDGs relative to 8 MDGs, and 169 targets relative to 18; they are global in scope – unlike the focus of the MDGs on the developing world only; and they are concerned with global public goods, not just nationally defined problems.   There has been much debate about the value-added of this new approach. Are there too many? Are they demotivatingly ambitious?   For me, the proof that the “Global Goals” is the right approach will be in the implementation. Will the policy makers and other powerful actors take an integrated, coherent approach across the SDGs? Or will they – as has been argued happened for the MDGs – implement them as if they are separate problems in separate boxes requiring different sets of actions?   For when we look closely at the SDGs it becomes pretty evident straight off that they are all interlinked. Let’s take the area I am most familiar with: nutrition. Goal 2 to “End Hunger” includes the ambitious target to “End all forms of malnutrition” by 2030. As we describe in the Global Nutrition Report, published on September 15th, this nutrition Goal is inextricably linked with the other goals. It is well established that good health is needed to reduce undernutrition. That’s Goal 3. We know educated people adopt healthier nutrition behaviours. That’s Goal 4. One of the most important pieces of evidence to emerge on nutrition in the 20th Century was that empowering women is a crucial factor. That’s Goal 4. Sustainable production and consumption is necessary to have enough food. That’s Goal 12. And we know there are links between climate change and nutrition. That’ll be Goal 13.   Of course this means that in return, ending malnutrition will contribute to these Goals too. Healthier diets, for example, can contribute towards climate change mitigation. Better nourished girls have better educational outcomes. It’s more sustainable if people don’t consume too much.   The tremendous possibility of taking an integrated approach to the SDGs is why for me the most important aspect of the SDGs is a little phrase hidden away in Goal 17 on Strengthening Means of Implementation. It is Target 17.14: “Enhance policy coherence for sustainable development.”   In other words: accept the reality that everything is connected with everything else and figure out how to solve problems from there. Far better that than try to fix problems on their own and then wonder why they are so hard to fix.   Of course, this is not new: MDG 8 was also supposed to promote policy coherence. But as the OECD’s Policy Coherence for Development unit has pointed out, times are different now. It’s a multipolar, interconnected world. If we don’t understand problems as common challenges we simply won’t solve them.   Nutrition is a classic collective challenge that needs policy coherence. This is one of the main messages of the Global Nutrition Report 2015: we need coherence between different forms of malnutrition, between funding and planning and between all the multiple sectors that affect it. And in particular, we need coherence with food systems.   Without that, the inadequate progress to address malnutrition in all its forms – only 21 countries of the 193 we monitor are on course to meet three or more of eight indicators – will remain just that: woefully inadequate. http://globalnutritionreport.org/category/news   Global goals must fight the poor nutrition that kills 3 million children every year.   One of the final acts in the lengthy process of creating a new set of global sustainable development goals (SDGs) was completed last weekend when world leaders formally adopted 17 goals and 169 targets. But for those of us who seek to tackle the world’s collective failing in ensuring adequate nutrition for all, the battle is just beginning.   Draft indicators for each target, which will measure the achievements of the SDGs, will not be finalised until next March. When they have been agreed, we should be in a better position to judge whether the SDGs are adequate to address one of the world’s foremost health challenges: the triple burden of malnutrition (or undernutrition), micronutrient deficiencies and overweight/obesity.   Globally, levels of hunger and undernutrition remain unacceptably high, with one in nine people worldwide suffering from chronic hunger and close to 2 billion overweight and obese. Undernutrition is responsible for the deaths of some 3 million children each year.   We feel there should be three priorities as we drive the fight against malnutrition forward. First, the assumption that nutrition and hunger are the same must be challenged.   The SDGs, unlike the millennium development goals (MDGs), strongly link hunger and nutrition. The goal of ensuring adequate nutrition could easily be missed because of a commonly held assumption that hunger and nutrition are the same thing. This must be challenged because it privileges action on hunger over nutrition.   Evidence shows that governments in Bangladesh, Nepal, Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania rarely show the same political commitment to addressing inadequate nutrition as they do to tackling hunger. This may be because popular conceptions of hunger are clearer, and historically it has been a political rallying point.   But overcoming the triple burden of malnutrition is not only about better food security, but also about more sustainable and healthy diets, better systems of support for mothers and infant care, and better health and sanitation.   Second, the new SDG indicators should adopt existing World Health Assembly indicators. While it is positive that goal 2 explicitly promises to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture” by 2030, achieving a good set of nutrition-relevant indicators is critical. This is how we can guarantee action at country level. Many nutrition advocates, including prominent UN bodies, have argued for the adoption of the indicators already agreed by health ministers at the 2012 WHA. As it stands, “nutrition” is still buried within the goals and targets of the SDGs.   While stunting in children – an important measure of overall child growth and development that was missing from the MDGs – is included, other WHA indicators, which try to capture the complexity of nutrition and its determinants, are missing. These include child wasting, rates of exclusive breastfeeding, and anaemia in girls. An additional indicator on women’s dietary diversity is being promoted by some UN agencies. At least the WHA indicator on childhood obesity is in there.   But we should go further in tracking obesity in both children and adults. Obesity is often a driver of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as diabetes. NCDs rightly feature in the high-level political goals, but so should obesity. One wonders at the politics which led to its relegation to the technical indicators rather than the political goals.   Third, the collection of good quality data is critical. The decisions on the indicators will drive global data collection efforts, policy debates and interventions over the coming 15 years. Good quality internationally comparable data is desperately needed to tackle malnutrition.   This requires systematic monitoring of both efforts and outcomes by governments, development partners, civil society and researchers. Because the results of the SDGs will take time to materialise, data on government efforts, such as policies, laws and investment, must be closely monitored.   International rankings such as the Institute of Development Studies’ Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index (Hanci), launched this week, already work to foster greater accountability.   Hanci measures political commitment to tackling hunger and undernutrition in 45 developing countries by looking at available data on government spending, policies and legal frameworks. This approach is an example of how to assess SDG progress, alongside critical work being carried out to assess wider progress on nutrition, such as the recently launched global nutrition report.   To effectively address malnutrition over the coming decades, we must monitor efforts and outcomes at a technical level and demand profound political commitment to this drive. Only then will the battle against malnutrition find its place in the “all in it together” universalism that has been hailed as the radical new approach at the heart of the SDGs.   * Dolf te Lintelo and Nick Nisbett are research fellows at the UK’s Institute of Development Studies: http://www.hancindex.org/ http://www.developmenthorizons.com/2015/09/the-hunger-nutrition-commitment-index.html http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/sep/30/global-goals-must-fight-the-poor-nutrition-that-kills-3-million-children-every-year http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs   Filipino ‘shortness’ due to generations of ‘stunted and malnourished’ children – Save the Children report   Save the Children’s new report suggests that Filipino ‘shortness’ is not just a genetic trait but is attributed to generations of ‘stunted’ children who are too small for their age because of malnutrition. In its report ‘Sizing Up: The Stunting and Child Malnutrition Problem in the Philippines’.   Save the Children says that one in three Filipino children suffers from stunted growth, an indicator of chronic malnutrition. It also suggests that despite progress in reducing child deaths, slow and unequal progress in curbing child malnutrition and stunting rates is likely to undermine efforts to reduce poverty and stall economic growth.   The report cited the National Nutrition Survey 2013 which indicates that in the last 20 years, stunting rates have gone down by only 9 percent from 39% in 1993 to 30% in 2013. Moreover, the study also shows that children from poorer households in both rural and urban settings and those living in conflict and disaster-prone areas face greater risk of malnutrition, particularly stunting.   Dr. Amado Parawan, Save the Children’s Health and Nutrition advisor said: “The assumption has always been that Filipinos are just genetically short but we what we actually see now are generations of stunted and malnourished children. Because ‘shortness’ is considered a racial trait, it is not seen as a serious concern. Stunting is more than just being short, it impacts children’s future because it hinders physical and mental growth.”   The report also shows that nutrition during the first 1000 days—from a mother’s pregnancy up to child’s second birthday—is crucial in preventing stunting among children. Studies have shown that children who were not able to achieve optimum growth within their first 1,000-day window is at higher risk of impaired cognitive development, which has adverse effects on their schooling performance, labor force participation, and productivity in later life.   Ned Olney, Save the Children’s Country Director said: “Malnutrition is undermining children’s development, economic growth and people’s capacity to get their way out of poverty. By tackling child malnutrition alongside poverty and food security, we can help save and tap the full potential of millions of Filipino children.   http://reliefweb.int/report/philippines/sizing-stunting-and-child-malnutrition-problem-philippines/   Aug. 2015   Nutrition and the SDGs. (Eldis, Bread for the World Institute, Concern)   As the UN post-2015 summit in September approaches how does the current draft of the SDGs shape up with respect to nutrition? Asma Lateef, Director of Bread for the World Institute with Jennifer Thompson and Joanna Francis of Concern share their reflections. All are members of the International Coalition on Advocating Nutrition (ICAN)   The target to "end malnutrition in all its forms" in the final draft post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) reflects a sea-change since the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) following the Millennium summit in 2000. The international community now understands and is responding to the evidence about the devastating personal and societal costs of undernutrition.   It is now clearer than ever that undernutrition in the critical 1,000 days between a woman’s pregnancy and her child’s second birthday robs children of future income and opportunity. It perpetuates the cycle of poverty and inequality.   The 2008 and 2013 Lancet Series on Maternal and Child Nutrition as well as studies by the World Bank and the Copenhagen Consensus have documented the most cost-effective interventions and the significant benefits to taking action to prevent or treat malnutrition.   In the MDGs, the hunger target was combined in Goal 1 with the target on extreme poverty and the only nutrition indicator was child underweight. Under Goal 2 of the proposed SDGs, to “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”, target 2.2 is “By 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under 5 years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons”.   Including two out of the six World Health Assembly (WHA) Nutrition Targets reflects growing consensus and political support since the first Lancet series. In 2010, the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement was launched to engage and consult high burden countries on the human and economic costs high levels of undernutrition in pregnancy and early childhood have on a countries development. Fifty five countries have joined the SUN Movement to date.   In 2013, the UK and Brazilian Governments alongside the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) hosted the first Nutrition for Growth (N4G) high level event and mobilized much needed resources to tackle undernutrition. In 2014, the Second International Conference on Nutrition reaffirmed global commitment to the WHA nutrition targets. It further called on the international system and multi-stakeholder bodies such as the Committee on World Food Security to coordinate action across sectors.   Strengthening goals and targets through nutrition indicators   The SDGs and targets are an important step in the right direction for nutrition. They stop short however of including all six of the WHA targets—risking a focus on only part of the full set of internationally agreed actions needed to sustainably ensure maternal and child nutrition.   While malnutrition is included under the hunger, food security and nutrition goal, there is no reference to it under any other goal or target, including the target to end preventable newborn and child deaths (3.2). We know that 45 percent of all preventable child deaths under the age of five are due to malnutrition.   The absence of nutrition across the SDGs risks signaling that other sectors such as health and water and sanitation (WASH), are not as critical in improving nutrition as food security and agriculture, and creating siloes when for the first time there is global consensus that it will take a multi-sectoral approach. It is important to recognize that the SDG summit this September does not mark the end of the process.   Important discussions are also taking place around how the goals and targets will be measured, a process that will only be completed at the global level in early 2016. In addition, each country will have to develop its own set of national level targets and indicators.   The International Coalition for Advocacy on Nutrition strongly calls for the inclusion of all six WHA targets, women’s dietary diversity and sufficient budget allocated for nutrition as indicators and national level targets.   Building momentum towards 2016 Nutrition for Growth   Sufficient inclusion of nutrition across the SDGs would ensure that the issue is recognized as a cross-cutting priority on the global development agenda. It would promote and result in action at all levels. Despite many positive developments, current global aid to nutrition remains insufficient, accounting for less than 1%. In a World Bank, Results for Development and 1,000 Days study on how much it would cost to achieve the WHA stunting target, they estimate that only an additional $8.50 per year per child is required to reduce stunting by 40 percent.   This amounts to an additional $50 billion over ten years, with a return on investment of $18 for every $1 invested. Current spending on stunting is estimated at $2.9 billion annually, with donors only accounting for $200 million.   At the 2013 N4G, Brazil committed to hosting the next N4G high level event alongside the 2016 Olympics in Rio. As we consider the transformative spirit articulated in the SDGs and look ahead to Brazil next summer, it is clear that the sea-change in understanding and momentum evident in recent years needs to translate into concrete financial commitments. The Rio N4G event presents a crucial opportunity to back up the increased political commitments with the requisite financial support, and help ensure the ambition and potential of the SDGs can be realized.   It is imperative that the international community as well as national level governments remain focused and step up their efforts over the next year, ensuring the new development framework truly sets us on the course to end malnutrition in all its forms.   The International Coalition on Advocating Nutrition (ICAN) represents a broad range of civil society organizations, including implementers, campaigners, and foundations united around one common goal: to save and improve lives through better nutrition.   http://www.eldis.org/go/blog/posts/nutrition-and-the-sdgs#.VcA3srWpVow http://globalnutritionreport.org/2015/07/30/nutrition-and-the-sdgs/ http://www.eldis.org/go/blog#.VcA4wrWpVox Visit the related web page
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