Devex Dish: A make-or-break moment for ending hunger at UNGA

‘Twas the week before UNGA
And all through the sector
attendees were frantically organizing their talking points
and slide decks and side event calendars and maps of Manhattan
as they prepared to go save the world
… or at least to protect ‘er.

With five years left to reach the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals — which are off track, and SDG 2 on ending hunger woefully so — there’s a sense that the high-level week of the 79th United Nations General Assembly is a make-or-break moment to try to build more sustainable food systems.

“It’s the last chance before 2030 to get the SDGs back on track, and that’s going to require more investment and smarter investment,” Ron Hartman, director for global engagement, partnerships and resource mobilization at the International Fund for Agricultural Development, tells me. “So having that opportunity for multilateral dialogue will challenge us as a global community on how we can respond.”

I heard from several Dish readers that you’re looking forward to the U.N.’s Summit of the Future, a major effort to “reinvigorate global cooperation at a time of unprecedented pessimism about this generation’s ability to tackle a host of existential global threats,” as my colleague Colum Lynch writes, and reach a Pact for the Future. But is solidarity even possible in today’s ultrafractured world?

On Tuesday there’s an SDG Moment aimed at showing progress is possible — and it will highlight “the role of just transitions in reshaping food systems to alleviate hunger while preserving nature,” among other things. Tuesday is also Food Day at Climate Week NYC and will focus on food systems transformation. Of course, there are many dozens of food, agriculture, nutrition, climate, and land use-related side events — including three panels hosted by Devex. Devastating hunger crises in Gaza, Sudan, Haiti, and elsewhere will also dominate agendas.

Political momentum around food systems has been building in the world’s highest-profile forums. Many point to last year’s U.N. climate change summit, COP 28, in Dubai as the tipping point: More than 160 world leaders have now signed the UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action.

What followed was a cascade of action throughout 2024 and into next year. For example, the presidencies of both the Group of Seven and Group of 20 largest economies have made hunger and inequality a central focus, with the launch of the G7’s Apulia Food Systems Initiative and the G20’s Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty. Also later this year are three major U.N. Conferences of the Parties, or COPs, on biodiversity, climate change, and desertification — each with potential to push forward progress on food systems.

The next replenishment of the World Bank’s International Development Association in December could drive money into food security and nutrition. Meanwhile, the food systems community is building toward the Nutrition for Growth summit in Paris next March.

It’s going to be a busy week in New York and a busy fall. Merry UNGA to all and to all a good summit! 

Read: UN Future Summit seeks to unite a fractured world 

+ Will you be in New York next week? Send me a note at dish@devex.com and I’ll connect you with our reporters on the ground! You can also attend in person or virtually any of our Devex @ UNGA 79 events from Sept. 23-26. It’s free to attend — register now!

A mouthful

Each year the Gates Foundation focuses on one major issue in its Goalkeepers report, and this year that issue is child malnutrition. The figures are alarming: In 2022, 148 million children experienced stunting and 45 million experienced wasting, a condition where they become emaciated and weak, putting them at risk of developmental delays or death, according to the World Health Organization. And between now and 2050, climate change will mean stunting affects an additional 40 million children and wasting an additional 28 million, according to a projection the foundation reached with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Those challenges will be felt particularly hard in lower-income countries in Africa and Asia that bear the brunt of climate change.

The foundation — whose Goalkeepers event at UNGA takes place Monday evening — urges governments to boost global health spending on children’s health and nutrition. It also points to four scalable solutions that can help the world avoid these outcomes: 

• More productive cows and safer milk.

• Large-scale food fortification against micronutrient deficiencies.

• Expanding access to better prenatal vitamins.

• Investing in the Child Nutrition Fund.

“The full return on investment is a 20-year return because it’s … this generation of children, the new cohort of children born, who need to avoid stunting and wasting,” the foundation’s CEO Mark Suzman told reporters last week. “If they grow up healthy with a fully healthy body and brain, they are the workforce of the future. That is the most critical investment in human capital that any government can be making in the health of its own people.”

The report also draws attention to the microbiome, the collection of trillions of microorganisms in the gut that help the body absorb nutrients and fight diseases. Gates is at the forefront of research in this area.

Read: Gates Foundation sounds the alarm on the crisis of child malnutrition  

Related reading: The key to ending malnutrition may lie in the gut microbiome (Pro)

And don’t miss this opinion: Investing in nutrition is investing in a more resilient world

The new kid on the block

The Child Nutrition Fund is a new, UNICEF-led financing mechanism with big ambitions. It officially began operating last November with a goal to raise $2 billion by 2030 and to reach 350 million women and children in the 23 countries where the most children under 5 years old experience wasting. And it’s already seeing some success, as my colleague Katrina Lane writes.

“Before the Child Nutrition Fund, there was no dedicated platform to coordinate efforts to address child malnutrition, to encourage domestic funding, or to support local production of the nutrient-rich foods and food supplements children need most,” the Gates Foundation writes in its Goalkeepers report. “The Child Nutrition Fund provides solutions to all three of these problems, in one place.”

Its inspiration is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the hugely successful initiative that rapidly scaled and has saved nearly 60 million lives since its founding in 2002. Joining UNICEF in setting up the new fund are the Gates Foundation, the United Kingdom’s Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation.

Read: What is the Child Nutrition Fund? (Pro)

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Chew on this

Zimbabwe will cull 200 elephants and distribute their meat to feed people facing acute hunger after the worst drought in decades. [Reuters]

Some 25 million people in Sudan are at risk of famine without more donations and better access, the World Food Programme says. [Associated Press]

Over 100 climate groups sent an open letter to big banks pressing them to stop financing industrial livestock production over climate change concerns. [Agriculture Dive]

COP 29 presidency is “committed” to agree on climate finance goal, CEO Elnur Soltanov says. [Devex]

The World Trade Organization chief has urged the EU to rethink its ban on imports from deforested areas. [Financial Times]