Global Nutrition Report 2018: Shining a light to spur action on nutrition
The yearly Global Nutrition Report (PDF) by Development Initiatives casts a light on where there has been progress on nutrition and identifies where major problems still lie, and thus where actions are needed to consolidate progress and fill major gaps. Stunting in children under five years of age is declining at a global level but numbers in Africa are increasing. Progress in addressing underweight and anaemia among women has been extremely slow while overweight and obesity among adults is getting worse. Most countries are off-track and none are making progress on the full suite of nutrition targets for 2025. Different forms of malnutrition continue to compound one another and crises around the world are increasingly protracted and significantly hamper tackling all forms of malnutrition. Data shows that diets in all countries and wealth groups pose a significant threat to achieving nutrition targets. Healthy diet policies and programmes are proving to be effective, but overall there is inadequate delivery of a holistic package of actions. Though donors have met the funding commitments made, there is still a financial gap and it is an outstanding challenge to cost, fund and implement the nutrition targets. Furthermore, there are still data gaps on micronutrient deficiencies, for which further investment is needed to help drive more effective action. The report comes with five critical steps needed to speed up progress: 1) Break down silos between malnutrition in all its forms; 2) Prioritise and invest in the data needed and capacity to use it; 3) Scale up financing for nutrition – diversify and innovate to build on past progress; 4) Galvanise action on healthy diets – engage across countries to address this universal problem; 5) Make and deliver better commitments to end malnutrition in all its forms – an ambitious transformative approach will be required to meet global nutrition targets.
On the website you can find the report in several languages, as well as the executive summary. Also, all chapters can be found here separately.