The Politics of Reducing Malnutrition: Building Commitment and Accelerating Impact Stuart Gillespie 1, Lawrence Haddad 2, Venkatesh Mannar 3, Purnima Menon 1, Nick Nisbett 2 and the Maternal and Child Nutrition Study Group 1 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) 2 Institute for Development Studies 3 The Micronutrient Initiative

The Politics of Reducing Malnutrition: Building Commitment and Accelerating Impact 2

Shifts in the Nutrition Landscape 2008 Stewardship of the nutrition system dysfunctional and deeply fragmented New evidence base introduced in the 2008 Lancet Series, identified critical 1,000 day window Pinpointed a package of highly effective interventions for reducing undernutrition Proposed a group of “high burden” countries as priorities for increased investment 2013 Nutrition significantly elevated on the global agenda Launch of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement in 2010: a major step toward improved stewardship of nutrition architecture Nearly every major development agency has published a policy document on undernutrition Donors have increased ODA to basic nutrition by more than 60 percent between 2008 and 2011, amidst a very difficult fiscal climate Nutrition is now more prominent on the agendas of the United Nations, the G8 and G20 and supporting civil society 3

The Challenges  To maintain global commitment  To accelerate country level commitment  To convert commitment into action  To accelerate improvements in nutrition status 4 Improvements in nutrition status are lagging behind economic growth

A More Collective Approach is Needed A “whole of society” approach to combine resources and know- how Beyond government, e.g. business and civil society Beyond the usual sectors, e.g. education and ICT Need to create an “enabling environment” for nutrition Enable these actors to come together Enable the emergence of new champions Incentivise them to do the right things for nutrition 5

Characterising Enabling Environments What does an enabling environment for undernutrition reduction look like? Three vital factors for creating momentum and converting it to impact: Framing, knowledge and evidence Politics and governance Capacity and financial resources Impact 6

Key Features of an Enabling Environment 7 To draw actors in and show they can make a contribution New Framing and Evidence To understand and navigate competing agendas To make the stakeholders’ commitments to nutrition visible and to promote accountability Politics and Governance To coordinate actions and to deliver, effectively, at scale Human and Financial Resources

Nutrition Narratives Nutrition for Growth Supercharging the Demographic Dividend Nourishing Minds Child Survival Hidden Hunger The First Step in Preventing NCDs in later life Narratives need to be backed up with credible evidence 8

Politics and Governance Vertical coordination high Good cross-sectoral coordination & Good cooperation between centre and local levels low high Horizontal coordination Malawi, Peru Maharashtra 9

Commitment to Nutrition is Not the Same as a Commitment to Hunger Reduction 10

Capacity to Deliver: Prioritising, Sequencing, Scaling Actions 11 Nutrition needs more leaders Individual What can one nutrition champion do within an organisation that does not support her? Organisational Are there spaces for stakeholders to come together? Are roles clearly defined? System

Resources for Nutrition: Look everywhere but be guided by a plan, with checks and balances Country type High-burden countries Create budget lines, Increase commitments, Find nutrition sensitive opportunities Fortification, Logistics, Local innovation Market purchases Donor countries Increase commitments, Create incentives that leverage high burden Risk sharing and pooling, Innovation start ups Ethical trading Public-onlyPrivate-public networks Private-only Resources for Nutrition 12

Enabling environments are needed to bring stakeholders together in harmony for nutrition Key features of enabling environments for nutrition: Collective approach, political approach, accountability strengthened, strengthened capacity at all levels, more creativity around resource mobilisation with stronger checks and balances Leadership at all levels is fundamentally important – for creating and sustaining momentum and converting it to impact Operational research on how to scale up and a shift to the “why?” and “how?” as well as the “what” of effectiveness Undernutrition reduction can be accelerated through deliberate action Let’s not wait for political will, let’s will our politicians to act Paper 4 Key Messages 13