N4G Summit 2021

Tokyo | December 7-8, 2021

The Nutrition for Growth Summit comes at a time when many countries continue to face extreme and rapidly evolving challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the N4G Year of Action on Nutrition, the Standing Together for Nutrition Consortium (ST4N), co-hosted by the Forum, commits to generating a policy-relevant gender framework, highlighting the differential impact of COVID-19 on women and children's nutrition by 2022. ST4N's framework assesses the impact of four COVID-related crises (declining family income, disruptions in health and food systems, and school closures) and maps how these crises are compounded by the existing underpinning gender power relations to disproportionately impact women's nutrition and human capital. This commitment will support advocacy for funding relating to COVID-19 mitigation and recovery, that must be explicitly gender-response in scope and delivery and that must embed women’s nutrition, and social and financial security.

A multidisciplinary consortium of nutrition, economics, food and health system experts working to address the scale and reach of COVID-related nutrition challenges.

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The COVID-19 crisis

New data and evidence show that the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to widespread increases in malnutrition due to disruptions in food, health and social protection systems. Lockdown measures are disrupting the production, transportation, and sale of nutritious, fresh and affordable foods, forcing millions of families to rely on nutrient-poor alternatives. Early reports suggest substantial drops in the coverage of preventive health services, including vaccination and antenatal care programs, as well as declines in optimal breastfeeding practices for fear of virus transmission.

The fundamental role of nutrition

While policymakers and public health leaders manage a range of urgent priorities, delivering good nutrition must be a foundational component of an effective pandemic response strategy. Good nutrition helps lessen the effects and risks of COVID-19, and is a prerequisite for the physical, immunological, and cognitive development of children and the health and productivity of adults. In short, no individual, community, or nation can thrive without good nutrition.

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Responding to the challenge

To address these challenges, Standing Together for Nutrition (STfN) formed as a multidisciplinary consortium to assess the impact of COVID-19 on nutritional status. STfN will model projected impacts during the short- and long-term recovery phases of the pandemic and identify recommendations to mitigate damage – drawing from agenda-setting data and evidence-based policy materials, including the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 (SOFI2020), and the recent United Nation (UN) policy brief, The impact of COVID-19 on food security and nutrition.

Making the case for action

The STfN Lancet Commentary published in July 2020 was a companion piece to Child malnutrition and COVID-19: the time to act is now, also published in The Lancet from the directors-general of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP), and World Health Organization (WHO), which issued a call to action to protect children’s right to adequate nutrition in the face of COVID-19.

The impacts of COVID-19 will likely persist for the next 3 years, with lifelong consequences on the heath of women, children, communities, and economies.

“We need to act now”
The Standing Together for Nutrition Consortium