© Christophe Da Silva pour Action contre la Faim
Headline
Nutrition, the cornerstone of global health
Action Against Hunger (ACF) would like to use this World Health Assembly (WHA) to highlight the urgency of malnutrition issues and call on Member States, United Nations agencies, Financial institutions and Donors to support a multisectoral approach to eradicate hunger and achieve SDG2 “Zero hunger” by 2030.
This WHA 78 should be a springboard for the next G7 in France and the forthcoming High-Level Meeting on UHC in New York, which will make funding for nutrition and achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC) crucial in terms of global commitments.
Globally 733 million people suffer from hunger and 11 million people die each year from nutrition-related diseases. This issue disproportionately affects women and children with more than a billion of adolescent girls and women who suffer from malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and anaemia and 45% of deaths in children under five being linked to undernutrition. Regarding the treatment, only 20% of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition have access to undernutrition care.
But progress on nutrition is too slow and under threat by climate change, protracted conflicts and gender and socio-economic inequalities. The Global Nutrition Targets (GNT) are about to be extended and renewed during this WHA 78 but they are always far from being met.
Moreover the international aid is falling for the first time in six years and the consequences of those global ODA cuts are spreading their negative effects on global health, nutrition and food security and in fine on human rights.
Despite the fact that the institution is facing a dire crisis on its legitimacy and on its financial capacity because of the US withdrawal, the WHO collaborating with Member States (MS) to make this next WHA 78 a succes, as a symbol of the resilience of the multilateralism and the global health community.
Following the Nutrition for Growth Summit (N4G) in France in March 2025, the extension of the Global Nutrition Targets and the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition comes at a pivotal global moment. Hunger is a scourge, but it is also a political choice: the solutions, treatments and resources exist, and it is up to the stakeholders to give themselves the means to eradicate it.
A global emergency: nutrition, rights and justice the extension of nutritional targets must be a moment of truth
In 2012, Member States during the World Health Assembly, established six GNT:
• achieve a 40% reduction in the number of children under-5 who are stunted;
• achieve a 50% reduction of anaemia in women of reproductive age;
• achieve a 30% reduction in low birth weight;
• ensure that there is no increase in childhood overweight;
• increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months up to at least 50%;
• reduce and maintain childhood wasting to less than 5%.
These targets were to be achieved by 2025 through a series of actions included in the plan. Efforts must continue : the WHA 78 represents a crucial opportunity for the realisation of the right to food and the right to health for all.
• ACF asks MS and donors to support the adoption and the implementation of the resolution on “Comprehensive implementation plan on maternal, infant and young child nutrition: extension » extending the GNT.
• ACF asks MS to financially support the achievement of these GNT by registering their commitments on the N4G platform before 30 June.
© Ahmed Waqqas Yasin Mahmoud pour Action contre la Faim
Integrating nutrition into health systems to achieve UHC
Hunger is not just a lack of food : without robust and accessible health systems, nutrition targets will remain out of reach. The integration of nutrition services into primary care, the training of health workers and local governance with adequate funding allocated to nutrition services are the pillars of this transformation.
Reminder : Greater emphasis on funding nutrition could save the lives of 6.2 million children under the age of five by 2035.
UHC is a human right, however the latest UHC 2023 progress report paints an alarming picture : it indicates that by 2021, around half the world’s population, i.e. 4.5 billion people, is not covered by essential health services.
Increase financial investment in public health
• ACF asks MS to support the “Strengthening health financing globally” and to allocate at least 15% of total public spending on health and an additional 1% of GDP on primary health care, to integrate and increase access to a package of nutrition services including undernutrition treatment to effectively improve women, children, and adolescents health and nutrition.
→ ACF joins the constituency statement on Financing and Social participation in UHC by Save the Children and the IAPO.
Strengthen governance to integrate essential nutrition actions
• ACF asks MS, donors, UN agencies and CSOs to fully support the implementation of the WHO guidelines on the prevention and management of wasting and acute malnutrition in infants and children under 5 years.
Strengthen the capacity of health workforce
• ACF asks MS to include nutrition in the initial curriculum of key health workers (such as midwive, nurse, but also community health worker) at all levels to ensure they are responsive to the nutrition needs of all, especially of women and girls across their lifecycle.
© Abel Gichuru pour Action contre la Faim
Gender, communities and local solutions: for equitable nutrition
Nutrition depends on the social, economic and cultural dynamics : we need policies that place women, girls and local communities at the heart of the solutions, from food production to the governance of healthcare systems.
Promoting locally-led nutrition solutions: a critical lever for Universal Health Coverage
Locally sourced, culturally appropriate nutritious home foods, combined with resilient, fair and sustainable food systems, should form the foundation of public health responses to malnutrition. This is particularly critical for the prevention and management of moderate acute malnutrition, as well as for complementary feeding practices, which are central to child survival and development. The 2023 WHO guidelines on wasting explicitly promote such approaches, while recommending that specialized nutrition products be reserved for high-risk cases only.
Community-driven solutions offer greater resilience : they are essential to building climate-resilient health systems, ensuring the right to food, and promoting gender equity and social justice, all of which are core concerns of the WHA78 agenda.
• ACF calls on Member States to integrate locally-led solutions and food-based complementary feeding into national health and nutrition plans (with SRH programming being a good entry point for delivering nutrition services to women and girls).
• ACF asks MS, donors, UN agencies and CSOs to promote and support community and locally-led solutions and to invest in programmes and research that support better livelihood and nutritious home food while articulating its role with specialized products.
How can we contribute to the achievement of UHC through social participation in strengthening health systems ?
In Madagascar a reform of the strategic health planning mechanisms is under development, with the objective to introduce a bottom-up, results-based, participatory and multi-year planning system.
The aim is to produce health development plans for each district and region of the country. These local plans will be developed, implemented and followed-up in a participatory way along the whole process, favoring the collective decision-making process and action. The committees leading this process will welcome representatives of local CSO, various communities of the area, users of the health system and diverse authorities and related stakeholders active in the health sector.
This way, the local actors will be able to make the voices of their communities heard in these decisive forums, and contribute to local health development plans that reflects the needs and specificities of their population. Social participation is paramount in this reform on the strategic planning of Madagascar, and will contribute to a more democratic health governance and a better prioritization of funding oriented by the community’s say.
This reform is presently being developed by the Ministry of Public Health of Madagascar, with the support of Action against Hunger, Action Socio-Sanitaire Organisation Secours and UNICEF, are providing technical assistance to the Ministry of Public Health of Madagascar in this development phase.
→ ACF organizes a side event “From Vertical Nutrition Programs to Integrated Health Systems: Preventing Wasting Through UHC” with World Vision on May 21 from 15:00 to 16:30
Beyond the Global Nutrition Targets, fighting gender inequalities to achieve nutrition security
Gender inequalities are a cause and consequence of hunger because they often determine who eats first and last, access to health and nutrition services, decisions about household resources, access to land for food production and consumption. Out of an estimated 820 million chronically undernourished people worldwide, 60% are women and girls. Poor nutrition outcomes (undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity) among women and girls hinder their economic opportunities and undermine their health and their rights.
Reminder : According to the 2024 World Bank investment framework for nutrition, “women-centered investments based on locally led adaptations are anticipated to enhance resilience and mitigation capacities, improve efficiency through better returns on investments, and ensure equitable distribution of the positive impacts.”
Integrating gender perspectives throughout the WHA 78 recommendations on nutrition is crucial for achieving transformative and sustainable nutrition outcomes.
• ACF asks MS, donors, UN agencies and CSOs to promote and implement sexual and reproductive health services and to extend access to essential nutritional actions to all women and girls, not just mothers, throughout their lives.
• ACF asks MS and donors to promote and implement the Gender Nutrition Gap Action Agenda and reposition nutrition as a feminist.
→ ACF joins the Women in Global Health the constituency statement on Sexual and Reproductive Health in UHC.
© Toby Madden pour Action contre la Faim
Financing nutrition as a public good
Before the funding crisis, governments and donors were still devoting too little funding to the fight against malnutrition : the World Bank estimates that an additional US$13 billion a year is needed until 2030.
Reminder : Each year, the cost of inaction on stunting, low birth weight and anaemia is estimated at 761 billion dollars (or 1% of the world’s gross national income) due to cognitive loss and mortality.
Despite growing needs and clear evidence of impact : every dollar invested in reducing undernutrition yields an estimated $23 in economic returns, food security and nutrition remain chronically underfunded.
How much ACF has been impacted by the ODA cuts and how much is needed to bridge the nutrition finding gap ?
ACF is facing a loss of funding of nearly 120 million and has been forced to suspend around fifty programmes in countries Haiti, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Madagascar and Afghanistan. In total, 1.5 million people’s lives are at risk as a result of threatened by the interruption of ACF’s nutrition programmes, many of whom will no longer benefit from essential health care, including sexual and reproductive reproductive care for women.
• ACF asks donors to reverse this trend and to reaffirm its ODA collective target of 0.7% of GNI by 2030.
• ACF asks donors to ensure more fiscal spaces for the integration of nutrition in PHC and the achievement of UHC through HSS.
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