Podcast: UNGA Decoded #7 – Gerda Verburg on building a nutrition movement

Listen to "Gerda Verburg on building a nutrition movement" on Spreaker.

The world is in the midst of a food crisis. While nearly everyone on the planet has seen the cost of food increase or supply chain bottlenecks, some countries are now teetering on the edge — or already falling into — major food security declines, or even famine.

At the sidelines of Devex’s “Reversing malnutrition trends” event at the 77th United Nations General Assembly last week, Gerda Verburg, who leads the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement, sat down with Devex Senior Reporter Teresa Welsh to discuss why nutrition is the fundamental building block of development, and what can be done to achieve fundamental food systems reform.

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TRANSCRIPT

Michael Igoe

Welcome to “UNGA Decoded.” I'm Michael Igoe, Senior Reporter at Devex. For the next couple of weeks, my colleagues and I are going to bring you inside the biggest global development gathering of the year. Skip the travel, the traffic, and the security lines, and join us for candid conversations with people at the leading edge of global development, global health, and humanitarian assistance. This is “UNGA Decoded.”

Teresa Welsh

Gerda, you were able to join us here in New York for one of our Devex events. And I'm privileged to be able to sit down with you again for another in depth conversation. Welcome to our podcast.

Gerda Verburg

My pleasure.

Teresa Welsh

Thanks so much for taking the time to be here. It was great speaking with you yesterday, and we had the opportunity to, you know, chat about really important issues and what we're seeing with the malnutrition landscape. And then both of us jetted right off the stage and over to UNICEF for their high-level pledging event. So let's maybe start there. I mean, what was your reaction to the 280 million for our [ready-to-use therapeutic food] scale up, I mean, really, incredible. …

Gerda Verburg

Yeah. It's an incredible amount of money. And it's making everyone hopeful that governments but also other foundations, and sometimes individuals, are really aware of what is needed to respond to this big crisis. So this is this is one thing and supporting organizations to do what they need to do to support families and their children is of immense importance, the focus — and that is also one one of the hopeful things was not only on cure meant curing children, but also on prevention of wasting and that is important as well. Now the big thing that is needed as a next step is to work and discuss with governments to prevent stunting because that is the first step in life. Wasting is, of course, undeniable, it is extremely important, but preventing stunting and taking care of your children during their first 1000 days, is the most important and governments at county level needs to invest and dedicate more policy legislation and funding and action to it.

Teresa Welsh

And for our audience that might not be familiar with the malnutrition lingo. Tell them, you know, stunting versus wasting — what are the two differences in causes between those two.

Gerda Verburg

Well, as daunting as you and very technical thing, but stunting is when children, little babies from the pregnancy of their mother until the second year do not get the right nutritious food and and treatment, so that their physical, but also their cognitive development and their potential mental well-being is already handicapped for the rest of their life, this impact how they are able to move and how much energy they have, but also how they later as children are able to learn in school and learning and education is of course, predicting how productive you can be and whether you can be able — will be able to escape poverty. Children who are well fed, well nourished, they are very likely to escape poverty because they are strong, they are smart, they find solutions for the challenges they are facing, they are doing better with family, managing, including family planning, and they're much more likely to escape poverty and create their own future. So this is so important. And one more thing, it starts with breastfeeding. So [we need to] make sure women who deliver babies are in a good nutritious status [and] condition so that they can breastfeed their children.

Teresa Welsh

I think you just laid out so perfectly why nutrition is the fundamental building block of development, it's something that I really enjoy writing about. Because of that, if you're spending a bunch of money on educating a child or ensuring they have access to all other sorts of services, but you know, that their brain isn't developing, right, you're wasting the rest of that money.

Gerda Verburg  

Indeed, and that's exactly the case. If people even minister of finance, who have never been confronted with complaints about stunting or but if you explain them, why it is important to invest in children during the first stage of life, and you start to talk about the cognitive potential, then they suddenly understand. And I had a minister in Zambia who asked me “Why, how is it possible that I have turned 68 years old and that I never been before was told about the importance for the physical and the cognitive development?”

Teresa Welsh

Yeah, wow, that's really striking.

Gerda Verburg

And another minister of finance said, “Alright, let us invest in it because I need to tax incomes income later on, and more tax income is also a signal of more social and economic development.”

Teresa Welsh

And that's been one of the goal of the SUN movement is sort of creating this environment in which countries are shown the benefits of investing in nutrition and creating a platform for countries to connect with one and other over similar challenges and help solve some of these institutional problems. What are you seeing sort of particularly in this moment, we find ourselves in so much crisis everywhere, what are you hearing directly from the countries that you work with in terms of what they need from the international community, as well as what they are looking to do domestically on their own.

Gerda Verburg

First of all I hear and see sad things, but I also hear and see hopeful things. The sad thing is that due to COVID, many people were knocked down and, to the contrary of what happened in many Western countries, the government was not able to support, there was hardly any social protection. So people have suffered because a day without work is a day without income. And the first thing you need to compromise is how you can feed yourself and your children. So that was really a blowback when it comes to — when it came to nutrition and improving data for good nutrition.

But during this period, many of our 65 member countries were able to bring nutrition and food security to the emergency room and in some countries, and they call it the “situation room.” So now it's part and parcel of every emergency response of a government. So that is a win. But on top of this, we have the different crisis, the Russia-Ukraine crisis, the regular conflicts, the climate disasters that are continuing think of Somalia, think also of Pakistan. It's devastating. But these are not the only one. So it's crisis on top of crisis, and we cannot have the luxury of thinking, “So we are almost done with the crisis, and we are going back to normal.” We will never go back to normal.

So the hopeful thing is that leaders now are looking around. And what they observe in their own country is that more and more families are poor, more and more families are looking for refuge or a want to migrate because if you cannot stay home — but also they observe that children are malnourished, and nothing is so impactful, and telling the story, then watching a stunted baby, who is too weak to sometimes even cry. So it's coming to so many political leaders right now, that if you allow your children to be born and stumble in a stunted condition through their first year in life, you are blowing the future of your country and the future of your society. So it's breaking through and more and more leaders are now talking not only about food security, but also about nutrition. So, food and nutrition and security. What is happening at the global level is that there's too much talk about food security alone because then we are talking about metric tons, and then we are talking about the funding, etc. Don't do it. Stop doing, talking only about the calories and filling the bellies, talk about the quality and what is needed to really support the development of people and the important things we already were discussing. What I hope and what I see happening here more and more, also here in New York, is that global leaders are ready to have the conversation with the national leaders and that is what needs to happen. The SUN movement is country based and country-owned, governments are taking the accountability when they sign up for membership to have a multisectoral, multi stakeholder approach to food and nutrition [and] security. And step-by-step global leaders start to listen and that is the good point.

However, global level leaders are very often stubborn. Once the crisis is over, everybody is talking about back to where we were and in the beginning we have heard the same solutions as we noted after 2008 and 2009. But we need to keep on the new tracks and support and align behind country plans. The demand is there. The initiatives are there. The educated people are there from their own country. Please respond to the demand and don't push your own priorities or brilliant solutions.

Teresa Welsh

Do you think we are in danger of really falling back into you know, these responses from 2008, from 2011? And missing this opportunity, not for fundamental food systems reform?

Gerda Verburg

Yeah. In the beginning, that was the case, think about the G-7 and their food security partnership. I mean, it's all meant very well. But it's not. It's again one of these approaches that you can predict. But that that happened already 10 times before. But here in New York, I can see that people are really listening to each other. And there are some game changing events, but also events and people and strategies. So I am hopeful. That's part of my job, and also my character, I will say, and as SUN movement, we will continue to support country demands to make the voice of country demands clearer, but also to make the case for more country-oriented solutions.

And there is an opportunity because at country level, you don't need to start from scratch. Exactly one year ago, there was the U.N. Food System Summit hosted by the secretary-general, since then, countries have worked hard bringing all the stakeholders in their food system together to reform food systems into food systems that are producing healthy, nutritious, diverse, and affordable food, provide farmers and food producers with a decent income. And that are producing in a climate smart way. This is a win-win-win. It's bringing at least seven [or] eight Sustainable Development Goals together. It's one investment and it's a country-owned investment.

And I can only call upon everyone who has something to invest, use your money in a smart way. If you can serve three or more goals with the investment of the same amount of dollars, it is an absolute no regret. And if you are building the resilience of people, and you are creating and supporting the dignity and prosperity of people out there — you're doing a blessed thing.

Teresa Welsh

Why do we miss these opportunities so often, though? You know, you just laid it out so clearly as to what the benefits are to doing all of this.

Gerda Verburg  

Don't ask me, I don't think it's a lack of, for me of being loud and clear. I don't know, maybe it's the people are people like to operate from their comfort zone. And if they are in a safe space, they're ready to discuss all the alternatives. But when they are going home, they tend to do the things that they did do. And maybe there is also the siloed approach. Because if you want to have a multi-sectoral, multi-stakeholder approach, how do you reorganize research? How do you reorganize also your funding? How do you engage with the — how do you discuss the priorities of your government because every government has its own priority.

But if you are not ready to leave your priorities and your requirements at the door or at the border of a country and align behind country initiatives, you're only pushing your own agenda, and you're not part of the solution. But you're a part of continuing the problem. Because inequality will rise, migration will rise conflict. You're right.

And I want to add one more thing, which is in the COVID situation, many governments needed to invest in social protection, needed to invest in buying vaccinations, etc. The depth has increased in many countries. I was in an African country where I had a conversation with the minister of finance because next to the minister of health and agriculture and education, all these others, I also want to talk with the minister of finance to make clear that and that investing in preventing malnutrition is an investment in the future. I'm sure and curing is only a cost and it's much more expensive.

But he said to me, “Listen, I would love to invest more in the future of my country and my people. However, every year that I get my budget, my national budget, I need to set aside 70% of the budget on for depth-related costs.” And he's not the only one. And it's still increasing because Africa, for instance, is importing food at the price for at the price of $60 billion a year.

Now, if you wouldn't be able to only let let's say, 25%, to start to spend 25% of this $60 billion a year to invest it in improving your own food production, creating jobs, etc. Preventing food losses and food waste. I mean, you're stimulating development instead of recurring costs every day. And the foodstuffs are there, the original foodstuffs like gears, cassava spelled amor, what have you, you have so many of these indigenous crops that are, I used to be produced in the soil that fit the biodiversity that also served in nutrition. But it is labeled very often as poor people's food, because people need to eat bread for breakfast. They need to have high sugary drinks, etc. Because that is the way forward and that is no it's not. So if people who want to invest in a better world really think through, then I will say listen to the voices from the communities out there, and align behind the people who understand what is going on, and who know what they are doing in improving their own life in a way, their own lives in a way that they can own and drive further themselves.

Teresa Welsh

And one final question for you. You, of course, have announced that you will be stepping down from your role as sun movement coordinator. What's your message to your eventual successor?

Gerda Verburg  

Please keep the movement character because bringing all these people together and make them work together is not always sometimes herding cats. But as long as all these cats are focusing on the same result, you're blessed because they they take the decision to take one or two steps further than they initially, initially intended to do. And continue to continue to be country-owned and focus on solutions that can be owned by the people themselves. Don't make people more dependent.

Teresa Welsh

Greg Everberg, thank you so much for joining us here. I was such a pleasure to talk to you as always. We really appreciate you joining us. Thank you.

Gerda Verburg  

Thank you very much. It was totally my pleasure.

Michael Igoe

Thanks for listening to “UNGA Decoded.” We'll be bringing you more interviews from the U.N. General Assembly throughout the next week. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do share it with friends, family, and colleagues. And you can also leave us a rating or a review on Apple podcasts. If you've been to UNGA and have some thoughts, or if you just want to share some feedback on this episode, we'd love to hear from you. You can find us on social media @devex and @AlterIgoe.