The 2021 Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit was a milestone platform for achieving global attention and commitments for improving and investing in nutrition. Although we have some way to go to plug the global funding gap, the Summit was a positive step towards this by mobilising more commitments than ever before.

At The Power of Nutrition, our vision is a world where every child has the right nutrition to achieve their full potential. Every day our team works towards this by raising money and creating partnerships to advance the fight against malnutrition in Africa and Asia. Collaboration is at our core. Our nutrition programmes are more effective and sustainable through the co-investments we facilitate, and the expertise of the multiple stakeholders involved.

Our commitments 

We recognise that our platform is unique, and our network’s achievements rely on our ongoing commitment to convening diverse funding and implementing partners for joint success. Our 2021 N4G commitments also reflect shifts in how we view our role and contributions to the sector, including going beyond stunting to tackle all forms of malnutrition, flexing our partnership criteria for greater impact, and embracing new financing flows and mechanisms, especially in innovative financing.

We have made seven commitments in the Nutrition Accountability Framework:

1. Stunting prevention: We remain committed to preventing stunting in children under five. By 2026, our programmes will contribute to the prevention of over 1 million cases of stunting.
2. Maternal anaemia: We remain committed to improving maternal nutritional status. By 2026, The Power of Nutrition will contribute to the prevention of over 850,000 cases of maternal anaemia.
3. Multi-sectoral programme design: We recognise increasing evidence of multi-sectoral approaches that address the diverse determinants of malnutrition, including evidence that indirect nutrition interventions could contribute to reducing over half of the burden of stunting. As such, The Power of Nutrition commits to supporting multi-sectoral programmes aimed to improve nutrition outcomes. By 2025, at least 75% of our new programmes will be multi-sectoral (e.g., including interventions in at least two of the following areas: health, social protection, education/ECD, food system, WASH, gender).
4. Addressing multiple manifestations of malnutrition: All our new programmes will directly target two or more manifestations of malnutrition (e.g., stunting, wasting, anaemia, micronutrient deficiencies, low birth weight, overweight, obesity).
5. Convening partners: We remain committed to convening partnerships and efforts to support nutrition by convening partnerships in both funding and implementing nutrition programmes. Our portfolio will continue to comprise of at least 85% of programmes having at least 3 partners (funding and/or implementing partners).
6. Localisation: We are committed to advancing the localisation agenda. By 2025, at least 60% of programmes funded by The Power of Nutrition will engage local and/or national institutes or organisations, through either direct funding or sub-contracting.
7. New co-investment in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): An example of our commitment to diversifying funding and convening investors is our new programme that aims to build resilience in the DRC. The Power of Nutrition and Sweden, through the Swedish Embassy in the DRC, commit to funding a multi-investor, multi-phase, multi-sectoral programme, catalysed by a 80mil SEK investment from Sweden. It will incorporate cash transfers, livelihood support, health, nutrition, agriculture, and Early Childhood Development interventions.

Other announcements and N4G activity

We also launched several new partnerships, projects, and announced our support to joint initiatives, including:

• Our plans to launch Nutrition Ventures in 2022, a new hub for piloting innovative financing mechanisms for nutrition.
• A partnership with Irish Aid to tackle severe wasting by increasing access to and uptake of Ready To Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF).
• A partnership with Islamic Development Bank and World Food Programme to create the First 1,000 Days Initiative and a Multi-Donor Trust Fund – a blended finance model prioritising nutrition programmes in Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) countries with a high prevalence of malnutrition. The Fund will aim to mobilise resources worth USD 200 million over five years through a range of funding and innovative financing instruments.
• A partnership bringing together Rotary International, Eleanor Crook Foundation, and The END Fund to co-fund a new $30m multi-sectoral programme in Ethiopia.
• New research on the economic impact of childhood stunting in Low and Middle-Income Countries – costing businesses between US$135.4 billion to US$264.6 billion in lost revenue every year.
• Collaboration in important coalitions that emerged from the UN Food Systems Summit, the N4G Summit and the momentum generated by the Year of Action, including the Anaemia Alliance, Wasting Reset, Standing Together for Nutrition, and call to action on the Power of Micronutrients.
• Advocacy for UK financial investment in nutrition, jointly releasing this statement with our INGO partners after the UK government notably failed to make a financial commitment.

Our involvement in the main N4G Summit and its fringe events also reflects our shift to being even more of a tenacious sector champion, contributing to and promoting joint efforts wherever we can. We did this by:

• Hosting three official side events in collaboration with partners – convening around 30 expert speakers and bringing together around 400 participants. Watch recordings here.
• Speaking about building resilience in fragile and conflict-affected states on Day 2 of the main N4G Summit – watch recording here.
• Co-authoring the finance chapter of the Global Nutrition Report (GNR), highlighting the opportunities sustainable investing and social bonds could provide for nutrition, and speaking at the GNR launch event about the need for increased and diverse funding.
• Endorsing the Tokyo Compact on Global Nutrition for Growth and the goals of N4G.
• Contributing to planning of the N4G Summit through active advisory in the Resilience and Financing Working Groups.

N4G highlighted that we all agree business as usual is not enough. With all global goals off-track, we need to radically rethink approaches.

The Power of Nutrition will build on learnings from the Nutrition for Growth Year of Action in 2022 and beyond as part of our 2022-25 strategy – ‘Transforming Global Nutrition Financing, Together’. This includes embracing new funding sources, creating a more flexible model, and being a tenacious sector champion.

We look forward to even greater collaboration with the sector going forwards, and we celebrate with our partners, the Government of Japan, and others the successes achieved by this year’s N4G Summit.

For more information on The Power of Nutrition’s progress to-date, view our latest progress reports or read our ‘success stories’ article on the N4G website – Catalysing co-investments and partnerships for high scale, sustainable nutrition programmes.