GENEVA, Dec 23 2025 (IPS) - In my more than 30 years with the United Nations, I’ve seen enormous change, collaboration and progress towards improving human development. But I’ve also seen how history has a way of repeating itself to entrench some of the most intractable global challenges.
In no area is this more evident than in the fight against malnutrition. Early in my career with Unicef, I learned to appreciate how crucial nutrition is to a child’s future, and the cascade of problems that follow when nutrition falters. The effects ripple through learning outcomes, health, economic opportunity, and long-term stability.
The 2008–09 food price crisis brought the issue of malnutrition sharply into focus. When nutritious diets suddenly became unaffordable for many millions, global leaders recognised the need for a different approach, inspiring the creation of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement.
Fifteen years on, we stand at a crossroads on nutrition. 2025 has seen a dramatic fall in overseas development assistance (ODA), especially for nutrition, which even in good years is below 1% of total ODA. And, there is no end in sight to humanitarian crises. The United Nations has appealed for US$23 billion to save the lives of 87 million people facing acute crisis, while more than 135 million people worldwide now require humanitarian assistance. In an increasingly constrained aid environment, the UN is forced into triage, deciding not where needs are greatest, but where limited resources can stretch the furthest. Beyond emergencies, a global cost-of-living crisis is pushing healthy diets further out of reach for millions more. Taken together, these pressures make one outcome tragically predictable: without urgent action, malnutrition will rise.
In Nigeria, hospital admissions of severely malnourished children have surged by 200 per cent in some states, and hundreds of children have already died from malnutrition, just in the first half of this year. In Sudan, the destruction of food factories and aid disruption amid a years-long civil war has left millions of people trapped in a never-ending, ever-worsening nutrition emergency.
Against a bleak backdrop of humanitarian crises at country levels, global trends project that more than half of the global population will be overweight by 2035 — the outcome of a food environment where convenient, low cost foods high in transfats, sodium and sugar are more affordable than nutritious foods.
And yet, now — just as renewed commitments to the principles that inspired SUN’s creation seem most crucial — high-income nations are reducing their spend on overseas development assistance (ODA) while SUN countries struggle with dwindling resources, regardless of their commitments to improving nutrition.
The world cannot afford to forget nutrition. To do so would invite a future marked by widespread chronic disease, overstretched health systems, lost educational and economic potential, and diminished quality of life for millions.
Meeting today’s reality demands a fundamental shift in how we plan and invest to solve the problem. We must move beyond short-term thinking, break down divides between humanitarian and development work, and coordinate efforts across food, health, education, climate, and social policy.
Only by building long-term resilience across governments, economies and communities can we hope to reverse current trends and safeguard the next generation against the nutritional challenges of the future.
This is the thinking behind the SUN Movement’s renewed approach — a joined-up, global effort built around three simple ideas: build resilience against shocks, work across sectors, and diversification of finance for sustainability. ODA alone cannot fuel progress against the World Health Assembly malnutrition targets.
First, resilience. The past few years showed that conflicts, climate disasters, and economic emergencies can quickly wipe out national nutrition gains. Resilience to such shocks is necessary to avoid human capital loss leading to longer term national decline. SUN will focus on helping countries build food and healthcare systems to withstand shocks and prevent emergencies turning into disasters.
Second, sustainable financing. Today, the world faces a $10.8 billion annual nutrition funding gap. Until we close it, countries will continue to face the same cycle of progress followed by setbacks. Countries need to be able to draw on more than one pot of money, and SUN will help them to diversify across national budgets, responsible business, philanthropies, development banks, and climate funds.
Third, addressing the changing face of malnutrition. Overweight and obesity now affect almost 400 million children, a tenfold increase since 1975. What is more, 70 per cent live in low- and middle-income countries, where populations are growing fastest. SUN’s renewed approach has put obesity prevention and healthy food environments alongside its long-standing focus on undernutrition.
Finally, integration. Malnutrition does not exist in isolation, so neither can our response. Policies across health, agriculture, education, social protection, climate adaptation, and humanitarian response matter. The Global Compact for Nutrition Integration — already supported by over 80 countries and organisations — is showing what true collaboration can look like. The Compact brings together governments, funds, development banks, UN agencies, civil society and business around a shared goal: aligning support with countries’ needs and providing a common framework to ensure nutrition objectives are embedded in policies, programmes and financing across all relevant sectors.
My career has taught me that global progress is never guaranteed. Moreover, I have learned that the gains we fight hardest for are often the most fragile and must be cultivated, invested in, and protected.
Two things are clear: no country is immune from the malnutrition crisis, and if we continue to rely on fragmented, short-term responses, this crisis will only deepen.
SUN is on a journey to help the world chart a different course. As I step back from this work, my hope is that global resolve only grows stronger, and in fifteen years time, we will have found new solutions for seemingly intractable problems.
Afshan Khan is UN Assistant Secretary-General and coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement
IPS UN Bureau
