Welcome to the Interactive Programme of MNF 2023

While extreme weather events are known to expose millions of people to acute food insecurity and famine, the impact of accelerated climate change disruptions on people’s nutrition and specifically micronutrient status are more complex and have a disproportionate impact on women. Reduced yields, lower micronutrient values of crops and market volatility threaten future health and micronutrient status. At the same time, our food system also contributes a third of GHG emissions and action must address both climate and nutrition together. This session will explore this critical nexus of climate change and micronutrition.

In general, improving dietary quality means getting consumers to eat more vegetables, fruits, lentils, fish, and animal products. However, poor consumers are constrained by high prices for these non-staple foods and low incomes. Nutrition education and behavior change strategies seek a re-allocation of existing expenditures and/or farm production choices in favor of more nutritious foods.

Good nutrition is crucial for resilient health and social systems. Improving nutrition outcomes, especially for women, adolescent girls, and children, is essential to break the cycle of global crises and build nations' resilience to future ones.This plenary session aims to showcase how nutrition programs can enhance resilience and demonstrate impact. It will also explore how such programs can secure funding within existing financing structures and provide a vision for the evolution of global financing to meet the needs of communities for comprehensive "nutrition for resilience" programming.

Food systems include all processes from production, transportation, processing, distribution, retailing, marketing to consumption of food. A well-functioning food system would keep food safe, nutrient-dense and affordably priced. This session examines opportunities within food systems which can be leveraged for healthy diets and to enhance micronutrient resilience.

This session will offer an overview of (i) what resilience financing for Nutrition means in practice (ii) the potential funding pathways (development financing, including climate finance, humanitarian financing), and initiatives for resilience financing and (iii) some of the key enabling factors for scaling up resilience financing for nutrition. Countries will share their experience in accessing and using these different financing sources to support their resilience strategies.

"If micronutrient deficiency persists, it is a political choice” (personal communication. Shawn Baker, Vice-Chair of Micronutrient Forum). There is enough information on what works (Lancet 2021). The Copenhagen Consensus analysis has consistently indicted that nutrition interventions, especially those targeting micronutrient deciciency are among the most cost effective interventions. While knowledge and evidence creation are critical for addressing micronutrient deficiency, an enabling environment is needed to convert evidence to policies and programs with sustainable impact. An enabling environment provides the political and policy processes that build and sustain momentum for effective implementation of actions geared towards addressing malnutrition (Gillespie 2013).

While rising political commitment and increased investments to improve nutrition have helped accelerate progress over the past two decades, notably in stunting reduction and exclusive breastfeeding, progress on women’s nutrition, and including maternal nutrition, has lagged over past decades. Approximately 170 million women of reproductive age are underweight worldwide and, according to a recent Lancet report, an astounding 2 in 3 women suffer from micronutrient deficiencies – with 1 in 3 suffering from anemia. As highlighted in a 2023 UNICEF Report Undernourished and Overlooked, gender inequality and poor nutrition are inextricably linked with disproportionate and adverse impacts to the health and futures of adolescent girls and women worldwide. Biased norms, including eating last and least, and structural inequalities lead to inadequate access to nutritious diets, nutrition and health services and unjust societal practices. Unfortunately, the ongoing global food crisis is exacerbating challenges facing girls and women as strained household and community resources further deplete their nutritional well-being and futures. Today, new evidence as well as rising policy commitments offer new opportunities to powerfully drive progress on women’s nutrition and equality together and with greater collective impact. Experts, for instance, are generating an increasingly strong evidence base on critical nutrition interventions during pregnancy, such as multiple micronutrients and balanced-energy supplementation, representing one of the most cost-effective interventions across all of development. The World Health Organization’s Comprehensive Framework on Accelerating Anemia Action and recently launched Anemia Action Alliance, together with UNICEF, is bringing together diverse stakeholders to accelerate collective actions toward global targets and aims to elevate anemia as a critical marker of overall health and development. And, this past July, leaders at the global Women Deliver conference launched the Action Agenda for Women and Girls: Closing the Nutrition Gap – inspiring new cohorts of advocates to promote women’s nutrition as an essential part of equality and empowerment movements.This session, entitled, Powering Women’s Nutrition, at the Forum’s 6th Global Conference, Nutrition for Resilience will promote a common agenda that integrates women's equality and nutrition by bringing together nutrition and gender leaders, experts, and practitioners. Speakers will identify and rally priority policies and actions that both empowers women and girls and powers their nutrition – and the critical role those factor have in the human capital development of communities and nations.

Increasing the density of minerals and vitamins in food staples offers a means to increase mineral and vitamin intakes at no extra cost to poor consumers. Transgenic plant development and agronomic approaches are discussed. Maintaining high productivity/yields and farmer profits is a key element to these approaches.

Accelerated climate change shocks impact the capacity of food systems worldwide to nourish populations, with a disproportionate impact on the nutrition resilience of the most vulnerable populations, specifically women and children. While this poses challenges for yields and nutrient density of crops, leading to higher food price and reduced micronutrient status, there are also opportunities for transformative adaptations of food systems for a positive impact on environment, health and micronutrition. Which transformations are ready to be scaled-up, what lessons can the global North learn from the global South, and what are the actions for which we shall hold governments, farmers, food industry, academics and consumers accountable?

This session will explore how nutrition advocacy narratives need to evolve to meet the realities of the present moment. Participants will hear from a variety of perspectives, including lessons learned from recent efforts. This session will also explore best practices in linking local-to-global advocacy efforts, nutrition budget advocacy, and accountability as successful approaches to improving nutrition governance.

By inviting speaker and panelist from private sector, business associations and SUN Business network this session will showcase presentations and a panel discussion on why investing in nutritious foods for a healthy diet for Bottom-of-the Pyramid consumers does make sense from a business perspective. The sessions aims to showcase examples of businesses that have invested in healthy products as well as forces and developments that will make it more important for these companies to make the choice for a healthier product portfolio.