European Union continues to put food and nutrition security high on their political agenda

Alexandra Newlands, Policy Officer from World Vision Brussels & EU Representation

This year, and especially right now, the political spotlight has been on nutrition. And nowhere more so than in the European Union, which continues to target improving nutrition for mothers and children, especially during last week's Foreign Affairs Council meeting, held in Brussels. Ireland, in its Presidency of the European Union (EU) has demonstrated strong political will to put an end to millions of preventable child deaths. Such momentum has been translated into the sound Foreign Affairs Council Conclusions released on 28th May. Read it here.

Ahead of the upcoming Nutrition for Growth meetings in London on 8th June, co-hosted by UK and Brazil, I wanted to look at what these recent conclusions mean for nutrition, and look ahead to see what more can be done to ensure millions around the world can reach their full potential through better nutrition. The EU’s commitment to contribute to 10% of the World Health’s Assembly stunting reduction target should for instance be followed as an example by other global and national leaders.

World Vision especially welcomes the new commitment by EU Ministers to implement an impact monitoring and resource tracking system for food and nutrition security. We also welcome the endorsement of the long-awaited Implementation Plan and the endorsement of the Communication on Maternal and Child Nutrition. Particularly commendable is the particular attention given to the critical 1,000 day window of opportunity between pregnancy and age 2 and the support of a multi-sector approach that integrates nutrition across national sector policies. Equally important is the consistent alignment with other relevant policy frameworks and action plans, including on food security and resilience.

While the Foreign Affairs Council Conclusions have positively echoed a substantial number of World Vision’s policy calls, the implementation of the initiatives and commitments made now urgently need to trickle down to the most vulnerable. This particularly includes fragile and conflict-affected States where disruption of food production and supply, destruction of household assets and livelihoods, mass displacement of population and degradation of vital services are all associated with rapidly escalating levels of malnutrition. Secondly, World Vision would have liked to see a stronger call for the inclusion of stunting and wasting reduction targets in the post-2015 development agenda. Thirdly, the conclusions of the Council could have further encouraged the EU to show leadership on these issues at international level, and especially at the upcoming G8 summit.

World Vision encourages the European Union and its Member States to continue building on this momentum at the upcoming Nutrition for Growth event in London on June 8th, the G8 summit in Fermanagh, and at the next United Nations General Assembly in September. How?

• Take steps to ensure the European Commission makes a significant financial pledge to deliver on its commitment to reduce child stunting by 7 million by 2025. The European Commission has committed to “reducing the number of children under five who are stunted by at least 7 million by 2025” as set out in its Communication of 12 March on “Enhancing Maternal and Child Nutrition in External Assistance: an EU Policy Framework”. This should scale up to $200m by 2020, a total of $1bn between 2013 and 2020.
• Encourage Member states to make strong financial commitments.
• Back the idea of a follow-up up Summit in Brazil in 2016.

On June 7th, as part of a wider fringe event entitled “An Integrated Approach to Tackling Malnutrition”, World Vision will be hosting a session on how to address the issue of Fragile States and how weak governance, conflict, instability and other symptoms of fragility impact upon nutrition; an occasion to reiterate the urgency of sustainably reducing the alarming rates of acute and chronic malnutrition in high-burden, fragile and conflict-affected States. We are delighted that Jean-Pierre Halkin, of the European Commission, will be speaking at the side event and look forward to continuing the dialogue on partnership for improved nutrition. Even where conflict is ongoing, World Vision’s research shows that we can collectively make progress and be the generation that ends hunger and malnutrition.