The global architecture to address undernutrition—a leading cause of under-five mortality—is evolving against a backdrop of global economic challenges and constrained resources. This puts funding for nutrition-specific interventions at risk, at a time when budgets are not keeping pace with growing needs.
Despite strong evidence of impact and cost-effectiveness, nutrition interventions are consistently underprioritized and underresourced within the health sector. Three key dynamics of the current financing landscape underpin these challenges: (1) a highly fragmentated architecture, (2) reliance on volatile external funding from a small group of core donors, and (3) low domestic spending.
Drawing from relevant experiences in the broader global health landscape, this paper proposes four policy recommendations to enhance the near-term impact and long-term sustainability of nutrition-specific financing: (1) leveraging additional resources for nutrition via the multilateral development banks, (2) exploring options to make external financing more stable and predictable, (3) preparing countries to transition from external financing, and (4) implementing results-based funding to drive greater accountability.
Upcoming milestones, namely the 2025 Nutrition for Growth Summit, provide governments, donors, and development partners a window of opportunity to elevate nutrition on the global health and development agenda and adjust the course of nutrition-specific financing over the next decade.
