Micronutrient Forum: Stories of nutrition resilience amid global polycrisis

17 Oct 2023 --- During this year’s Micronutrient Forum Global Conference, “Nutrition for Resilience,” Standing Together for Nutrition has released a summary of its upcoming Global Resilience report, providing recommendations for strengthening the nutrition resilience of systems before, during and after a crisis.

The authors note that millions of people have been suffering from a polycrisis in the past three years — with COVID-19 and a culmination of climactic and economic crises coinciding, which interact in ways that make the whole more overwhelming than the sum of its parts. 

At the same time, the report includes “stories of resilience,” where purposeful investments in strengthening programs, policies and synergies between multiple systems made them better equipped for nutrition results. 

“Many countries have demonstrated the capacity of their systems to absorb, adapt and transform in response to shocks in ways that have safeguarded access to nutritious diets, essential nutrition services, and positive care and feeding practices for the most vulnerable families,” reads the report.

The report is co-authored by UNICEF and the UN World Food Programme, contributing to the dialogue on nutrition resilience, including discussions at the conference in The Hague, the Netherlands, 16-20 October. 

Strengthening nutrition resilience 
By reflecting on the stories of resilience the report identified, its authors provide recommendations for governments and their partners to build more sustainable systems and a healthy and equitable future. 

The polycrisis of COVID-19 and a culmination of climactic and economic crises coinciding affected millions.Actors should implement policies and programs that enable all systems to be adaptive, absorptive and transformative in the face of future shocks and crises. 

Moreover, the report urges governments to increase the resilience capacity of crucial systems, especially the food, health and social protection systems, to maximize the prevention of malnutrition in countries most vulnerable to crises. 

In addition, governments should leverage investments made during humanitarian crises to ensure that humanitarian and development efforts offer a continuum of services, strengthen community capacities and empower and engage with communities as participants and contributors to the nutrition resilience of systems.

Finally, the report recommends strengthening data collection and building robust information systems to measure changes in access to nutrition foods, essential services and positive care practices before and aftershocks.

Lessons learned 
The upcoming Global Resilience Report captures how some governments strengthened and adapted food, health, water and sanitation, education and social protection systems to maintain or expand critical services to protect nutrition among the most vulnerable groups. 

According to the report, all systems have the potential to be resilient in safeguarding nutrition during a crisis. For example, governments extended financial support to strengthen the resilience of food systems, while education systems found alternative delivery platforms to dispatch school meals. 

Countries that had the flexibility to leverage nutrition interventions across multiple systems had a better position to safeguard nutrition. Ghana’sThe health and education systems in Ghana joined forces to deliver iron-folic acid supplements to adolescents. In contrast, the Peruvian food and social protection system cooperated to scale up fortified food production and distribution. 

The report highlights that reaching the most vulnerable groups is crucial for nutrition resilience. For example, the authors note that the South African government expanded the eligibility criteria for its Child Support Grant to ensure an additional seven million people could benefit from child support.

“Expanding and strengthening local capacities and empowering communities were critical strategies for safeguarding nutrition during the polycrisis,” reads the report. The authors detail that in Indonesia, the health system adapted its program for screening and early detection of child wasting from a community health worker to a family-centered approach. 

Actors should implement policies for adaptive, absorptive and transformative systems to address future crises.Finally, the report underscores the importance of shared management information systems, innovative technologies, collaborative platforms and swift decision-making to increase nutrition resilience. 

Micronutrient Forum 
This week’s global conference, starting yesterday on World Food Day, will bring experts together in discussions to align priorities and action plans and prioritize investments in nutrition. It explores the link between micronutrient status and resilience, aiming to identify specific and concrete actions to support the most vulnerable, particularly women and children.

“This conference will be the catalyst we need for robust scientific discussions and policy dialogues,” says Saskia Osendarp, executive director of the Micronutrient Forum. 

“We have no more time. We must foster a renewed sense of urgency to facilitate alignment between nutrition and resilience agendas across sectors and make tangible progress toward global development goals.”

Lawrence Haddad, executive director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, concludes that the conference is convening at a critical time when people increasingly experience economic, conflict and environmental shocks. 

“We urgently need to create food systems that are more diverse in what foods are grown, where they are grown, how they are grown and in the foods consumed. Diversity is the antidote to risk and is key to ensuring the nutrition status of vulnerable families is more resilient to the increased frequency and intensity of shocks we are witnessing today, which we will continue to see in the next ten years.”

By Jolanda van Hal