Post-2015 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals: Where Are We Now? Global Opportunities to Address Malnutrition in all Its Forms, Including Hidden Hunger

Combatting malnutrition in all its forms - undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight, and obesity - is one of the greatest challenges that countries are facing. Much has happened in less than 10 years to redefine the international nutrition landscape and place nutrition at the heart of global development efforts. The food crises of 2008 and the Lancet first series on maternal and child undernutrition helped galvanize world attention. The enormous health and economic consequences of malnutrition were recognized, and far more attention began to be paid to the multiple burdens of malnutrition. In 2014, the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) endorsed 2 outcome documents, committing world leaders to establishing national policies aimed at eliminating malnutrition in all its forms, including hidden hunger, and transforming food systems to make nutritious diets available to all. In 2015, 193 Member States of the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global objectives to guide the actions of the international community over the next 15 years (2016-2030). Member States placed high priority on addressing malnutrition in all its forms by committing, under SDG 2, to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture.” However, nutrition has also a role to play in achieving other goals of the 2030 Agenda, including goals related to poverty, health, education, social protection, gender, water, work, growth, inequality, and climate change. In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the ICN2 outcome documents and proclaimed the years 2016-2025 as the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition. The Nutrition Decade reaffirmed the commitments under the ICN2 and the 2030 Agenda to end malnutrition in all its forms. Together, the ICN2, the 2030 Agenda, and the Nutrition Decade have placed nutrition firmly at the heart of the development agenda with the recognition that transformed food systems have a fundamental role to play in promoting healthy diets and improving nutrition. This paper reviews the major international nutrition system changes called for, and provides an analysis of recent governance initiatives to address malnutrition in all its forms, including hidden hunger problems.