How did the EU spend on nutrition in 2018?

While the United States remains the single largest donor to nutrition, the European Union is also working to put the issue on the global development agenda. For the 2014-2020 funding period, the bloc made a pledge to invest €3.5 billion ($3.9 billion) to reduce the number of stunted children globally by at least 7 million. To shed some light on the European Commission’s financial support for nutrition, Devex took a closer look at the data. We analyzed close to 5,000 contracts awarded in 2018 by two departments — the commission’s development arm DEVCO, also known as EuropeAid; and its humanitarian arm ECHO — which were published in the commission’s financial transparency system. From those, we identified 178 with a nutrition-specific focus. Although combating malnutrition depends on multisectoral interventions, the contracts considered here focus on the immediate causes of malnutrition, including dietary diversity and quality; nutrition-related disease treatment and management; micronutrient supplementation; breastfeeding; and infant and young child feeding practices. Data from the FTS indicates that the commission’s two aid departments spent approximately €520.3 million on nutrition-specific interventions in 2018. However, the database comes with a number of caveats. First, it is not comprehensive. Only about a quarter of the EU’s official development assistance in 2018 shows up in the FTS. In the case of nutrition-related interventions, it does not appear to include any contracts awarded by the European Development Fund, which covers much of the EU’s development cooperation with African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries. Second, a non-negligible amount of contract awards in the FTS do not have detailed descriptions. As a result, some nutrition-specific awards may have been excluded. Conversely, some nutrition-specific allocations might be inflated because of multisectoral contracts with nutrition components that cannot be separated from the total contract value. While FTS data does not paint a full picture of the bloc’s work on nutrition, then, it can still yield valuable insights. Geographic insights Asia was the region to receive the most EU nutrition funding in 2018: The bloc spent €389.1 million, or 75% of its total budget as accounted for in FTS data, on South and Southeast Asia. With contracts amounting to €201.1 million, or 39% of the total budget, Pakistan was the largest recipient country. Because it grapples with numerous nutrition challenges, the European Commission typically intervenes on strategic opportunities with the largest potential for impact, as exemplified by investments totaling €200 million in the Programme for Improved Nutrition in Sindh, Pakistan, or PINS. The project aims to build and strengthen the capacity of local government and community organizations to implement multisectoral nutrition policies and interventions in rural Sindh, a region where almost two out of every three children are stunted, and the prevalence of wasting frequently exceeds the humanitarian threshold. Bangladesh was the second-largest recipient country, receiving 35% of total funding. Despite its development successes, Bangladesh still has one of the highest levels of stunting in the world. The European Commission appears to be especially focused on reinforcing the country’s political commitment and policy development in the field of nutrition. For instance, it channeled €58.7 million to Leadership to Ensure Adequate Nutrition, or LEAN, a project that aims to create an enabling environment for improved and sustained pro-poor nutrition security in Southeastern Bangladesh. Representing 21% of the EU’s nutrition allocations in 2018, sub-Saharan Africa was another key recipient of funding. The bloc directed most of its support to Western and Central Africa, with Niger, Mali, Chad, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo among the top 10 recipient countries. In Niger, key contract awards focused on building the capacity of authorities as well as formal and informal health systems to ensure food and nutrition security and scaling up integrated treatment programs for acute malnutrition. Meanwhile, in Mali, major grants included €2.35 million for Première Urgence Internationale to strengthen the access of crisis-affected populations to health care and nutrition and €2 million for The Alliance for International Medical Action to provide emergency nutrition. At €10.9 million, Yemen also received considerable nutrition funding in 2018, making it a geographic outlier among the EU’s top recipient countries. Commission support was exclusively channeled in the form of humanitarian assistance, particularly integrated health, nutrition, food security and WASH interventions for conflict-affected areas. Key awards include €3 million for International Medical Corps U.K. and €2.5 million for Action Against Hunger. Contractor insights Organizations based in donor countries are the prime recipients of EU nutrition funding, both in terms of the value and number of contracts. In 2018, 164 out of the 178 nutrition-specific contracts analyzed were awarded to organizations located in Europe, North America, and Oceania, amounting to €315.4 million ⁠— or more than 61% of total funding. Organizations based in France won the most nutrition contracts, with the commission handing out 49 awards worth a total of €83 million. The EU also relied heavily on organizations located in the United Kingdom (31 contracts worth €66.7 million), Spain (25 contracts worth €23.7 million), Belgium (15 contracts worth €10.2 million), and Italy (11 contracts worth €9.1 million). Only 14 nutrition contracts in 2018 went to organizations based in lower-income countries. However, these amounted to €204.9 million — or more than one-third of the total — with organizations located in Pakistan and Bangladesh receiving the bulk of contracts. In Pakistan, the Rural Support Programmes Network (€51 million) and the Thardeep Rural Development Programme (€30 million) received the largest nutrition contributions, whereas top awards in Bangladesh went to Eco-Social Development Organization (€9.9 million), and the Jum Foundation (€9.8 million). Meanwhile, a closer look at the type of recipient organizations that won the most contracts shows that the vast majority were international organizations or consulting firms. Through its offices in France and Spain, Action Against Hunger was the biggest winner of EU nutrition funding in 2018, according to FTS data, scoring 25 awards worth a total of €61.85 million. With the exception of a €30 million award to implement PINS in Pakistan, EU contracts won by the organization ranged from €200,000 to €3.2 million, mostly in South Asia, Western and Central Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Other INGOs with the most contract awards were Save the Children (13), mainly for interventions in Mauritania; Alima (12) in French-speaking African countries such as Niger, Mali, Chad, and Cameroon; and Oxfam (10), mostly in relation to Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, DRC, and Mauritania. In 2018, EU nutrition grants to these three INGOs generally ranged from €200,000 to €3.5 million. With eight awards amounting to €33.8 million, Concern Worldwide was another INGO that received significant nutrition funding from the European Commission. As with Action Against Hunger, Concern’s largest award was €30 million in grant funding to implement PINS in Pakistan. All other awards related to Niger and Sudan, and ranged from €150,000 to €1.2 million. Finally, despite only winning five and two awards respectively, World Vision and CARE nonetheless received some of the largest amounts of EU nutrition funding in 2018. Through its offices in the U.K., Bangladesh, and Australia, World Vision won grants worth approximately €8.2 million each for the implementation of the Bangladesh Initiative to Enhance Nutrition Security and Governance, or BIENGS. CARE won two grants worth a total of €19.8 million through its offices in the United States and Austria to implement the Joint Action for Nutrition Outcome, or JANO, in Bangladesh. To learn more about EU FTS data, explore our analysis and visualization of the EU budget and dive into how the EU spent on migration in 2018.