Nutrition for Growth 2025: Reflections after a successful Summit

It’s already four weeks since I was in Paris for the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit; the detail of what happened, who said what, and what I learned is no longer front of mind.  As I think about the Summit, it’s the size of the challenge we still face that is foremost in my mind...

This was the 4th N4G Summit, preceded by those hosted by the UK in 2013, Italy in 2017 and Japan in 2021.  Now, it was the turn of France.  At the Japan hosted summit, despite the Covid pandemic, there was a significant increase in pledges.  This year, expectations were modest, but in the end, commitments exceeded those made in Japan in 2021, reaching nearly $28b. 

This year also should have marked the end of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition, a commitment to eliminate malnutrition in all its forms, everywhere, and leave no one behind.  Its recent extension to 2030 shows that, while progress has been made, it is not sufficient.  Despite many summits, global meetings, commitments and the creation of new organisations, alliances and networks, we still have a very long way to go to eliminate hunger and malnutrition by 2030. 

As I look back over the years since the first N4G Summit and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals and reflect on the five decades that I have been involved with international development, it is noticeable that ‘delivery’ is the constant and persistent challenge for international development agencies.  Why is this the case?

• Are our goals too ambitious, too vague, too broad; Do we aim too high?

• Are our planning and operational management processes not good enough, or do we fail to fully resource the plans?  Do we give more importance to planning than to the delivery of the plan?

• Is our understanding of the problem, and the complexities and dynamics of global national and local contexts insufficient or inflexible? 

• Are we distracted by reputation management; making a name for ourselves or our organisations, and wanting to claim 'credit' for what we do and achieve?

• Are our conceptual models still overly dominated by north/south, local/external mechanical 'fix it' perspectives, and fail to sufficiently recognise and support local agency, people-led, and national-led approaches?  

• Have we created an international development machine that is too big, too bureaucratic, too slow, and too inward looking?

The answer is, it’s a mix of all the above (and more).

Brieuc Pont at the end of the summit remarked, “it wasn't a beauty competition, but it's nice to be beautiful”.  Our challenge now is to maintain and enhance that beauty, and ensure it is reflected in the progress we make over the next five years in achieving our SDG 2 goal of ‘Zero Hunger’ – global food security, improved nutrition, and sustainable agriculture and an end to hunger.