Overview
Undernutrition is a silent crisis impacting millions of children and women globally. Despite progress, alarming statistics from 36 GFF partner countries in 2022 reveal that 76.5 million children were stunted, 17.8 million were wasted, and 9.8 million were overweight. Women of reproductive age face high rates of anemia, and many newborns suffer from low birth weight. Addressing double burden of nutrition of malnutrition is essential to achieving global nutrition targets by 2030.
Systemic challenges exacerbate these issues, including weak nutrition governance, poor integration of nutrition interventions within health systems, heavy reliance on donor funding, low domestic resource mobilization, a shortage of trained nutrition officers, and supply chain issues hinder progress.
Data and monitoring gaps also present significant challenges. Nutrition monitoring primarily depends on DHS and MICS surveys conducted every five years, resulting in infrequent updates. There is also a low level of integration of nutrition-related indicators within national health information systems.
Progress with Global nutrition targets across GFF Partner Countries
In the section below, you can explore the progress with global nutrition targets across GFF partner countries from 2012 to 2022.
Progress with key nutrition governance indicators across GFF Partner Countries
Many GFF partner countries continue to face many governance challenges including insufficient multi-sectoral coordination and critical gaps in resource mobilization strategy and budget tracking.
Multisectoral Nutrition Plans
The analysis of multisectoral action plans across various countries reveals multiple opportunities for improvement to ensure effective nutrition governance and implementation. Majority of countries (28 out of 36) have developed multisectoral nutrition plans, but only 23 countries have fully costed national nutrition plans, and just 21 have integrated monitoring and evaluation frameworks while only 25 countries had nutrition advocacy and communication plans.
Multistakeholder Nutrition Platforms
While 34 out of 36 countries have established a National Multi-Stakeholder Platform (MSP), only 20 have comprehensive annual action plans for their MSPs. Additionally, subnational nutrition coordination mechanisms are present in 31 countries, but many still lack fully implemented mechanisms, particularly at the subnational level where only 22 countries have annual action plans for their subnational MSPs. Although 34 countries have established a SUN Civil Society Network, fewer have engaged business (26), academia (23), and donor (26) networks adequately. Additionally, only 10 countries have established broader stakeholder networks involving youth, parliamentarians, and media.
Nutrition Financing
The analysis of nutrition financing reveals critical gaps in mobilization strategies, budget tracking exercises, the identification of funding gaps, and domestic expenditure nutrition tracking are often incomplete or absent in many countries. Specifically, only 8 countries have a resource mobilization strategy and less than 15 countries have conducted budget tracking exercises. The identification of funding gaps is relatively better, with 18 countries reporting this practice, yet it still leaves room for improvement. Lastly, only 13 countries are tracking domestic expenditures on nutrition, underscoring the need for better financial monitoring and accountability.
In the section below, you can explore each of the individual elements of nutrition key governance indicators.
Strategic Direction and GFF Approach to Nutrition
The Global Financing Facility (GFF) employs a comprehensive strategy to tackle nutritional challenges, encapsulated in a robust Theory of Change. The strategic directions from 2021 to 2025 focus on five key areas: enhancing country leadership and partner alignment, advancing equity and gender equality, safeguarding high-quality essential health systems, building strong health financing systems, and maintaining an unwavering focus on results.
The GFF Nutrition Action Areas for 2024-2030 includes catalyzing more and better financing for nutrition by aligning efforts with RMNCAH-N platforms and prioritizing investments to reach the most vulnerable populations. This strategy involves integrating high-quality nutrition interventions within health systems to address the triple burden of malnutrition among women, children, and adolescents. Additionally, the GFF seeks to implement financing reforms to increase domestic resources for nutrition and improve spending efficiency, thereby strengthening country data systems for better decision-making. Execution approaches include mobilizing financing, generating knowledge and learning, collaborating with international partners, and scaling up high-impact interventions.
Based on the contextual analysis, specific focus countries could include Nigeria, Pakistan, DRC, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Niger, Afghanistan, Mozambique, Uganda, Madagascar, and Vietnam, where targeted efforts aim to maximize impact.
GFF Nutrition Theory of Change
Resources and Tools
-
-
Topic Title Type Date Cambodia Cambodia's Investment Case for RMNCAH-N Investment case 2018 Nigeria Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Health and Nutrition (2017-2030) Investment case 2018 Rwanda Rwanda Integrated Early Childhood Development Investment Case (2018-2024) Investment case 2018 DRC Investment Framework for RMNCAH With a View for Achieving Universal Health Coverage (2019-2022) Investment case 2019 Guatemala Cruzada Nacional por la Nutricion. Gobierno de la Republica de Guatemala 2020-2024 Investment case 2020 Malawi The Government of Malawi's Investment Case for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition (2020-2021) Investment case 2020 Indonesia Indonesia's National Strategy to Accelerate Stunting Reduction 2020-2024 Investment case 2021 -
-
-
Topic Title Type of report Date Additional external data sources and Publications WHO Child Growth Standards Global Nutrition Monitoring Framework WHO conceptual framework for stunted growth and development Global Nutrition Targets Policy briefs Global nutrition policy review Global Nutrition Report