2020 Global Nutrition Report: Action on equity to end malnutrition
This year’s Global Nutrition Report (PDF) by Development Initiatives uses the concept of nutrition equity to elucidate inequities and show how opportunities and barriers to attaining healthy diets and lives lead to unequal nutrition outcomes. Wordwide nutrition progress is too slow to meet global targets and deeply unfair. There are significant inequalities within countries and populations, according to location, age, sex, education and wealth. To drive the transformative change needed to achieve nutrition equity, and end malnutrition in all its forms, we must focus on three key areas: First: food systems, from production to consumption. Current food systems do not enable people to make healthy food choices. Recommendations include: implement strong regulatory and policy frameworks; optimise agricultural subsidies; provide support for transport schemes and shorter supply chains; implement, monitor and evaluate evidence-based food policies; hold the food industry accountable; strengthen and increase research spending. Second: nutrition inequities in health systems must be addressed. Nutrition actions represent only a tiny portion of national health budgets, although they can be highly cost-effective. Recommendations are: roll out nutrition services within health services; invest in human resources; use a variety of health professionals; include nutrition-related health products; optimise health record and checks for nutrition care; commit to routine and systematic collection of equity-snesitive nutrition data. Third: financing volumes should be proportionate to the burden, so new financing mechanisms should be developed that can complement existing sources. Recommendations are: increase domestic financing; invest in data management systems; increase international nutrition financing and coordination; establish an international system of governance and accountability; establish support spaces for dialogue on coordinated action; undertake sistuational assessments to identify bottlenecks.