Building investment cases for nutrition interventions: rationale and experience – N4G side event

This N4G side event is jointly organized by UN Nutrition, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO) and moderated by the United Nations Inter-agency Task Force on noncommunicable diseases (UNIATF NCDs).

Experts and country representatives will discuss how investment cases for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), developed by UNDP, WHO and UNIATF, under the Global Joint Programme to Catalyze Multisectoral Action on NCDs, have been used for diet-related policy changes and legislation, including fiscal measures and changes in packaging and labeling requirements. The session will also illustrate how nutrition intervention modelling can support an end to malnutrition in all its forms, leaving no one behind, as well as what is needed to complete the modelling and investment case for 1-2 countries.

From child stunting to anaemia among girls and women to adult obesity, malnutrition continues to affect an ‘unacceptably large number of people’ around the world. The newly released Global Nutrition Report also warns that, “The high human, environmental and economic costs of continuing our current trajectory are so significant that we will pay a far higher price if we fail to act,” (Global Nutrition Report, 2021). With the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit just days away, making the investment case for nutrition has never been so timely or pressing.