An Action Agenda for a Nourished World

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BE PART OF THE ACTION AGENDA
Malnutrition is the single largest cause of death among women globally.

We find this unacceptable. Are you with us?

This Action Agenda demands rapid and urgent change to the global systems generating unfair outcomes for women and girls. We want to see powerful leadership and sustained investment so that all women and girls – and their potential – is nourished.

Malnutrition, in its many forms, is robbing women and girls of the lives they deserve – causing fatigue, lower resistance to disease, reduced cognition and income earning potential and death. Progress on anemia has stalled with no country on track to meet the globally agreed 2030 target to cut anemia in half for adolescent girls and women of reproductive age. Overweight and obesity is also on the rise in many countries and micronutrient deficiencies for women and girls is fast-growing.

Are you an advocate for women and girls?

All women and girls have an innate right to good nutrition, which is essential for her health, immunity, resilience to disease and her ability to reach her dreams. Women’s and girls’ nutrition also has a profound impact on the well-being and socio-economic development of society. Put simply, women’s and girls’ nutrition is a matter of equality.

Are you or your organization supporting gender equality or working across food systems, health and climate? We are looking to work with motivated individuals and organizations to build an agenda that lasts. Sign up and support the co-curation of this agenda and/or be a spokesperson for it here. 

ACTION AGENDA TO BE RELEASED IN MAY 2023 – we are calling for interested partners to join us.

BE PART OF THE ACTION AGENDA
Advocating for women’s and girls’ nutrition is a key step in accelerating progress across the feminist agenda.
The Action Agenda calls for policy change, acceleration of policy execution, regulations, programmatic scale and systematized social and behavior change, with investment in four priority areas. It is a call to decision-makers at global, regional, and national levels: donors, governments, civil society organizations (CSOs), international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and the private sector, to unite, and take rapid action on women’s and girls’ nutrition:

Improve diet quality. Safe, nutritious foods are available, accessible, and affordable to all women and girls.

Strengthen the care system. Expand quality health and nutrition services and improve linkages with social protection services for women and girls.

Promote gender equality to address the fact that nutrition is a gendered issue.

Foster a multi-systems enabling environment for women’s and girls’ nutrition.

Doubling down on high-impact, cost-effective nutrition interventions will accelerate the Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) community’s progress toward its goals.
Maternal nutrition interventions are one of the best buys in global development.

They have been linked to significant increases in GDP, with multiple micronutrient supplementation during pregnancy having a rate of return of up to 1.16 for every dollar invested.

Nutrition during the first 1,000 days of life between pregnancy and a child’s second birthday set the foundation for all the days that follow. Good maternal nutrition supports a woman during this special time and improves nutrition outcomes throughout a child’s life, increasing their cognition and overall development as well as and life-long resistance to non-communicable disease.

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The Global Diet Quality Score can measure diet quality, helping to progress women’s and girl’s nutrition.

Today, an array of diet quality metrics are available for use, yet there are important differences to consider when choosing a metric for a particular context. Key considerations include the time and resource requirements for data collection and metric tabulation, the validity of the metric for use in the given context, and the type of information and level of detail the metric provides about the diet consumed. One such metric, which can be used to guide policy making, is the Global Diet Quality Score (GDQS) -– the first metric validated for global use to capture diet quality. The GDQS metric and App have been designed by FHI Solutions’ Intake – Center for Dietary Assessment to assess, monitor, and evaluate progress towards achieving population level diet quality.

The Global Diet Quality Score Toolkit
Our focus at the country and regional level is in India, Nigeria, and southeast asia. Country experience will be used to influence a cohesive global response. If you are working in these geographies on related issues and would like to learn more, please get in touch.

In 2015, world leaders agreed to 17 global goals. Women’s and girls’ nutrition impacts all of them.

Action to end hunger and malnutrition (SDG2) for women and girls accelerates progress across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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Graphic highlighting the 17 Sustainable Development Goals

Women and girls continue to be the hardest hit by the climate crisis, conflict, and COVID-19

A girl out of school during the pandemic is more likely to experience malnutrition and be at risk of early marriage, which is likely to reduce her ability to earn income and increase chances of early pregnancy.

At the same time, women and girls play a pivotal role in driving reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through farming and agriculture. Yet, they are most affected by the negative consequences of climate change and the Ukraine crisis. Unless we act now, we risk the health and potential of millions of women and girls.

Read The Standing Together for Nutrition Consortium’s projections