Highlights

UNICEF’s Food Strategy 2020–2030: Nutrition for Every Child outlines UNICEF’s strategic intention to support national governments and partners in upholding children’s right to nutrition and ending malnutrition in all its forms over the next decade.

Today, at least one in three children is not growing well due to malnutrition. New forces are driving the nutritional situation of children forward – globalization, urbanization, inequalities, environmental crises, health epidemics and humanitarian emergencies – and are presenting crucial challenges to the sustainable nutrition of children today and for future generations.

There is reason to be optimistic, however.

Since 2000, the percentage of children under 5 who suffer from stunts has decreased by a third, and the number of children doing stunts has decreased by 55 million. While important challenges still lie ahead, this achievement makes it clear that a future free of malnutrition is within reach.

To drive progress over the next decade, rights-based and context-specific programs based on knowledge and innovation will once again be defined in the nutrition strategy.

We are expanding our traditional focus on early childhood to include middle childhood and adolescence. We are again focusing on preventing stunts, waste and micronutrient deficiencies, and increasingly responding to the challenge of overweight and obesity in children.

And we propose a systems approach to nutrition that strengthens the ability of five key systems – nutrition, health, water and sanitation, education and social protection – to provide diets, services and practices that support adequate nutrition for both mother and child.

The strategy builds on UNICEF’s previous strategic guidelines and program experience and includes six strategic changes to respond to the developing face of child malnutrition:

• An explicit focus on tackling child malnutrition in all its forms
• A comprehensive lifecycle approach to nutritional programming
• A conscious focus on improving diets, services, and practices
• A systematic approach to mother and child nutrition
• Pay more attention to private sector engagement
• A universal vision and agenda relevant to all countries

We stand ready to help national governments and their partners uphold the right to food for every child and ensure a more just and just future for children and their families – today and on the path to 2030.