2021 Global Nutrition Report

Poor diets and resulting malnutrition in all its forms are unacceptably high across the world, creating one of the world’s greatest current societal challenges. The need for bolder, sustained and better coordinated action on nutrition that goes far beyond the nutrition community has never been greater.

The 2021 Global Nutrition Report sets out progress towards the global nutrition targets, evaluates the impact of poor diets on our health and our planet, assesses the nutrition financing landscape, and provides a comprehensive overview of reporting on past Nutrition for Growth (N4G) commitments.

At the current rate of progress, the global nutrition targets will not be achieved by 2025. We assess performance against the targets, examine how the Covid-19 pandemic is further impeding progress, and pose some of the short- and long-term responses urgently needed to bring the world back on track.

Diets affect both human and planetary health, with a quarter of all adult deaths attributable to poor diets, and current food demand responsible for more than a third of greenhouse gas emissions. This chapter presents new estimates of the associated health and environmental impacts of our diets today.

Current financing challenges, exacerbated by the economic downturn triggered by Covid-19, threaten to increase malnutrition. We examine the global resourcing needs, and collective effort required of stakeholders to address malnutrition and build human capital, to raise more financing and to deliver more impact with the money we have.

This chapter assesses progress towards the 2013 and 2017 Nutrition for Growth commitment goals and examines the alignment of the N4G commitment goals with the global nutrition targets. We also present findings on the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on stakeholders’ ability to achieve their commitment goals in 2020.