The food systems summit is an opportunity to 'reset expectations'

Shawn Baker, USAID’s first chief nutritionist, believes that the progress made so far in nutrition is not enough to meet the ambitious targets of the World Health Assembly and the Sustainable Development Goals targets by 2030.

Speaking at a Devex event, Baker said the United Nations Food Systems Summit is “an incredible opportunity to reset the expectations about what has to happen from the food and agriculture sector to meet those targets.”

Why it matters: We know that undernutrition is a big problem, we have a lot of evidence-based solutions, and there has been enough progress to “show that we’re serious about delivering nutrition, we actually can see it happen,” Baker said.

Highlighting the importance of engaging with the food and agricultural sector, he said the efforts put in by the public health nutrition community are toward “digging ourselves out of a hole created by a food system that does not deliver safe, affordable, and nutritious food.”

Around the world, 149 million children are stunted, 49.5 million suffer from wasting, and 20.5 million live births have low birth weight, Baker said. With the pandemic resulting in decreases in coverage in nutrition services, these problems have exacerbated.

What comes next: The food systems summit and the Nutrition for Growth Summit later in the year will be an opportunity to “learn from our progress to date, learn from what’s happened during the pandemic, to strengthen our food systems, our health systems, our social protection systems and our humanitarian response to re-energize the nutrition agenda and reach those bold targets,” Baker added.

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