From beneficiaries to partners: A youth reflection on the 2026 Global Nutrition Report
Young people are growing up in overlapping climate, economic and health crises that are directly shaping our health, nutrition, education, livelihoods and economic opportunities. Climate shocks reduce agricultural productivity and disrupt food value chains, resulting in higher food prices and strained health services needed to prevent and treat malnutrition. These pressures not only affect our present circumstances, but will also affect our future selves and children through the results of the policy and investment decisions being made today. Reflecting on the 2026 Global Nutrition Report therefore raises an important question: How can young people help shape and deliver climate-resilient nutrition solutions?
As a young African nutritionist from Tanzania and the Food Systems and Nutrition Focal Person for the Southern African Youth Forum (SAYoF), I believe young people must be recognised as more than beneficiaries of nutrition action. We are nutritionists, health professionals, farmers, entrepreneurs, researchers, innovators and advocates. We bring lived experience, technical knowledge and new ideas. Since our futures are directly affected by today’s decisions, we should have a meaningful role in designing, implementing and monitoring them.
Unlocking young people's role in climate-resilient nutrition
Across the Southern African Development Community, countries face interconnected challenges, including food and nutrition insecurity, anaemia amongst women, the triple burden of malnutrition, climate shocks and persistent poverty. These challenges cannot be addressed through isolated interventions. They require integrated action across food systems, health systems, climate policy and social protection. And young people should be essential partners.
First, governments and development partners should purposefully create opportunities for young people across climate-smart and nutrition-sensitive food systems. The report identifies climate-smart agriculture, healthier food environments, and reducing food loss and waste as promising strategies. Young people can contribute as producers, researchers, technology developers and entrepreneurs working in storage, processing, transport, distribution and local markets. Investing in youth-led solutions to reduce post-harvest losses can improve livelihoods while helping nutritious foods reach more communities. Therefore, leaders need to design policies which ensure youth have access to the skills, finance, technology, infrastructure, markets and decision-making spaces shaping food systems.
Second, young people can help strengthen nutrition-inclusive health systems. I found the report's recommendation to embed nutrition within primary healthcare and universal health coverage to be one of its most important. Nutrition should not be treated as a stand-alone intervention, but as a core function of healthcare throughout the life course. Young nutritionists and health professionals can engage in promoting healthy diets, screening, referrals and preventive services. Youth-led organisations can also help identify why vulnerable communities struggle to access timely nutrition services and bring those experiences into policy discussions.
Third, youth should have a formal role in governance and accountability. Young people should participate in national, regional and global food-system dialogues, climate and nutrition planning, policy monitoring and assessment of whether commitments are producing results. Youth participation should move beyond nominal partnership, including opportunities to generate evidence, communicate community experiences and hold institutions and governments accountable for implementation.
From recommendations to regional action
At SAYoF, we will use the 2026 Global Nutrition Report as a roadmap for regional action through youth-led research, policy dialogue, evidence-based advocacy and engagement with the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Biennial Review across Southern Africa. We will encourage young people to examine how climate-smart food systems and nutrition-inclusive health systems are being integrated and whose experiences remain unheard.
On this International Youth Day, I call on fellow youth champions to move from the margins to the centre of nutrition action to shape policies, contribute solutions, hold decision-makers accountable and help translate commitments into action. Young people should not merely inherit tomorrow’s food and health systems; we must help shape them today.
Georgia Blessings Apson is a young Tanzanian, Registered Associate Nutritionist (ANutr, UK), and the Food Systems and Nutrition Focal Person for the Southern African Youth Forum (SAYoF). Her work focuses on food systems and nutrition, youth leadership and parliamentary engagement, policy accountability and climate-resilient nutrition across southern Africa.