Good nutrition is also central to the sustainable development agenda that is taking shape in the form of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) now under discussion. Inherently sustaining, good nutrition flows throughout the life cycle and across the generations. It promotes individual resilience in the face of shocks and uncertainties generated by climate change and extreme price fluctuations. It supports the generation of innovations needed to meet the joint challenge of improving the lives of current and future generations in ways that are environmentally sustainable.

 

This Global Nutrition Report is the first in an annual series. It tracks worldwide progress in improving nutrition status, identifies bottlenecks to change, highlights opportunities for action, and contributes to strengthened nutrition accountability. The report series was created through a commitment of the signatories of the Nutrition for Growth Summit in 2013. It is supported by a wide-ranging group of stakeholders and delivered by an Independent Group of Experts in partnership with a large number of external contributors.

 

This report has a number of unique features. First, it is global in scope. Nearly every country in the world experiences some form of malnutrition, and no country can take good nutrition for granted. Second, because global goals require national action, the report aims to speak to policymakers, practitioners, scientists, and advocates in all countries. It assembles copious country-level data and other information in an accessible manner and highlights the experiences of a large number of countries from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America, and Oceania. Third, a key focus of the report concerns how to strengthen accountability in nutrition. Many of the core features of malnutrition—including its long-term effects, the need to work in alliances to counter it, and the invisibility of some of its manifestations—make accountability challenging. We thus identify actions to strengthen key mechanisms, actors, and information in ways that will help hold all of us to account in our efforts to accelerate improvements in nutrition status. Finally, the report is delivered by an Independent Expert Group charged with providing a view of nutrition progress and an assessment of nutrition commitments that are as independent and evidence based as possible.