As France prepares to welcome the many nutrition and development actors to the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit in Paris this week, the stark challenge of coming together to announce funding for nutrition at this specific moment is painfully obvious. At a time when global consensus and collective action are desperately needed in our world, the old systems of order and alliance are facing upheaval, disruption and deconstruction.

We are acutely conscious that the sudden and unprecedented recent cuts to official development assistance (ODA) by major donors mean that people will die, children will suffer and malnutrition will get worse. If we are to preserve the progress made these past decades, we must maintain a bright and focused light on the centrality of nutrition despite the turbulent development agenda.

That is why N4G Paris (and the upcoming G7 meeting to be held in Canada later in June) is so important. It’s not only an opportunity to rally forces, but also to come together and figure out how we can guarantee that nutrition remains at the top of the global political agenda as we move towards a “post-ODA” world. When donors are stepping back, who must step forward?

The answer is countries themselves. If countries are to weather the storms of changing donor priorities and the risks of over-reliance on ODA, they must come to the realization that taking control of their nutrition destiny is essential. Sovereignty refers to “the authority or power of a state or governing body within its own territory, free from external control.” Africa’s population will roughly double between now and 2050 ― that’s more than one billion more children. Their health and ability to learn depends on whether they are well nourished or not. If the strength of their immune system and brain development are dependent on a donor whose priorities might change overnight, it is hard to imagine sovereignty.

We often hear, with reason, about the importance of food sovereignty, but in a post-ODA era, food sovereignty can only make sense when it enhances nutrition sovereignty.

What is nutrition sovereignty? When countries make the nutrition of their populations a top development priority, when presidents and prime ministers understand the difference between food and nutrition, and when they know the percentage of children in their countries who are stunted and wasted ― then they can begin to take control of their nutrition destinies and fight social inequality.

Taking leadership and control of the nutrition agenda is important because we know that with the right nutrition at the right time, the health, immune system strength and brain development of a child is protected. With good nutrition, children will achieve better education outcomes and have improved future opportunities.

This is crucial because well-nourished, well-educated populations are more productive: they are able to earn more income, pay more tax and increase their country’s capacity to contribute domestic resources. When people are healthier, they cost less to the healthcare system and have lower out-of-pocket expenditures because they aren’t sick as often. These savings can then be invested more productively elsewhere. This virtuous cycle, driven and supported by increased nutrition sovereignty, leads to liberation and independence from aid.

Strong systems that deliver nutritious food are also a crucial component of this. When countries can choose what is best for their people, they have agency. When they have agency, they have ownership of the solutions. By prioritizing local and national economies and markets over industrialized, multinational food product distribution networks, we can help governments and communities make their own choices about food production and distribution. This includes small-scale production and large-scale efforts, such as mandatory food fortification. The result is resilient, equitable and sustainable systems that provide adequate nutrition and ensure local control.

So how can we get there? Here are some examples:

• Provide decision makers with costed policy options and cost of inaction scenarios to support better decision making. Decision makers at the national and subnational levels need context-specific data and evidence that show not only the health and human capital impacts of investing in nutrition, but also the economic consequences of not doing so. Through the Nutrition International Cost of Inaction Tool, an online, evidence-based and user-friendly analytical tool designed for country-level policy makers and advocates, for example, decision makers can rapidly generate estimates on the health, human capital and economic costs of inaction on stunting, low birthweight and anaemia (in women and children) for over 140 countries. This will help them to understand how much money they stand to lose by not meaningfully investing in nutrition.
• Support increased investment in nutrition at national and subnational levels by designing locally owned “best things first” costed plans. We need to help governments unlock more domestic and international resources for nutrition by developing optimized plans that prioritize the best investments first — and then work with them to bring those decisions to life. This includes building targeted investment cases and evidence-based, costed and context-specific nutrition action plans that prioritize delivering the greatest impact at the lowest cost. For almost a decade, Nutrition International has been working with more than a dozen county governments in Kenya to support them to develop county nutrition action plans (CNAPs), which identify and prioritize essential nutrition actions to target undernutrition at the subnational level. A recent study of the cumulative impact of five of the CNAPs between 2018 and 2022 projected that they would avert 1,800 child and 115 maternal deaths, prevent and treat 19,000 cases of stunting and 4,700 cases of wasting in children under five, and avert 67,000 cases of anaemia in pregnant women and adolescent girls.[1]
• Improve the policy environment for better nutrition. Where governments request and need support, partners can lean in to provide long-term technical assistance and capacity development, helping them to advance their planning, prioritization, legislation and regulation efforts in favour of nutrition. For example, in collaboration with its partners, Nutrition International works to present compelling evidence to governments, multilateral organizations and donors to establish legislation that will support the achievement of meaningful progress in combating malnutrition. In Pakistan, this led to the enactment of mandatory food fortification legislation in three of the country’s provinces. Additionally, Nutrition International provided technical support for the development of the country’s anaemia guidelines.
• Strengthen nutrition governance. Nutrition sovereignty depends on government capacity to coordinate nutrition across sectors, including planning, implementing and monitoring nutrition programs and their impact. To support this leadership, long-term technical support to strengthen governance may be needed. In Ethiopia, for example, Nutrition International is supporting the Government to plan, coordinate and implement the 2015 Seqota Declaration to help the country meet its commitments to end stunting and undernutrition among children under the age of two years by 2030.
• Eliminate siloes and adopt an integrated approach. Now more than ever, countries need to take a no missed opportunities approach to public health. Targeting a single issue in isolation, such as education, infectious diseases or immunization, among populations with high burdens of malnutrition does not achieve the best outcomes per dollar spent. However, by identifying cost-effective opportunities for integrating nutrition with other issues, countries can generate positive health and development outcomes that go beyond nutrition alone. An example is Child Health Days in many African countries, which are an opportunity to not only ensure children are up to date on their routine immunizations, but that they are also screened for acute malnutrition and provided with their biannual dose of vitamin A. This lifesaving intervention strengthens immunity, protects against blindness and has been shown to prevent at least 12% of child deaths caused by common childhood illnesses such as measles, malaria, diarrhoea and respiratory infections.

By following specific pathways to nutrition sovereignty like these, governments can invest their own resources more effectively, implement more sustainable programs and policies, and reduce their reliance on outside funding. This makes countries more resilient and reduce their vulnerability to external shocks, such as changes in global political landscapes, climate change, conflicts or pandemics.

Investing in nutrition makes a difference. Nutrition is the difference between a child going to school and excelling there. It’s the difference between an economy being stuck in a rut or being driven forward by the strength, passion and potential of the next generation. It’s about creating the conditions for people to craft their own dreams for improving their family, city or country — and then to achieve them. Most of all, it’s about rekindling the flames of hope and belief that a better world is possible and within reach for all of us.

Hope and vision are critical resources in triggering action, and while recent ODA cuts are a significant set-back in this moment, we are not powerless. The N4G Summit can help mark the end of an old story — and the beginning of a new one in the fight against malnutrition. In this new story, countries are the authors of their destiny, and leaders define their worth and success based on improvements in the health and nutrition of their children. External actors need to align their support for countries’ nutrition sovereignty.

[1] Jain, S., Ahsan, S., Walters, D.D., Kinyua, G., Smith, J., Nyagaga, M., Greig, A., Arabi, M. (2025.) A case for subnational nutrition financing: The development and use of country-level investment cases in Kenya. PLoS Global Public Health, 5(2), e0004128.

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