World Bank Group commitment

1. Food and nutrition security are key for human capital development and are an integral part of the World Bank’s COVID-19 response. Of the 48 countries with the lowest Human Capital Index, 41 have high child stunting rates. Many of these same countries also have high obesity rates and non-communicable diseases. Ironically, the double-burden of undernutrition and obesity often co-exists in the same countries –and often in the same families, and it takes its toll on countries’ productivity.

Before the pandemic there were about 150 million stunted children across the world, who have lost the opportunity to achieve their full economic potential; and there were over 2 billion overweight/obese individuals –more than 70% of who live in low middle-income countries.

After the pandemic we expect these numbers to rise, adding further urgency for us to respond to protect human capital and future economic productivity.

2. IDA is one of the main sources of development finance for addressing malnutrition and food insecurity. For instance, the IDA Crisis Response Window’s Early Response Financing – which was introduced in July 2020 – has allocated $450 million to date to support early responses to rising food insecurity.

3. One week from now, the Government of Japan will host the fourth and final meeting of the twentieth replenishment of IDA (IDA20). We expect to reach agreement on a very ambitious financing and policy package to enable IDA to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and build back better.

Human capital and food and nutrition security will remain a key priority in IDA20. As part of the policy package, and anchored in concrete policy commitments, IDA will work with partners to help countries fight malnutrition.

4. The World Bank’s annual commitments for nutrition have grown significantly from US$ 10 million in FY12 to US$1.2 billion in FY21 and we have a total of over US$6.0 billion in the portfolio under implementation today. We are grateful to Japan for its Trust Funds which have played an important role in this scale up by providing technical assistance and capacity building support. During our FYs 21 and 22 the World Bank (IDA and IBRD) is planning to commit up to $2.5 billion of financing to nutrition-contributing activities. Our commitment to this agenda is strong, and we expect to be able to maintain, or possibly even grow this level of financing for nutrition during the FY23-25 period. As with all our financing, these funds will be deployed in consultation with national authorities through country allocations, and other sources, such as the Crisis Response Window’s Early Response Financing to ensure the support responds to country contexts and development priorities.

5. These amounts will be complemented by significant resources that have already been allocated to address food insecurity.

6. We are also grateful for additional trust fund resources provided by generous donors such as Japan which will help complement our operational work with technical assistance and capacity building, thereby enhancing the impact of IDA and IBRD investments. In addition, we are pleased to see that private sector groups such as Japanese life insurance companies and other investors (Nippon Life and Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance, and Nomura Securities) are now purchasing IBRD nutrition bonds, thereby bringing attention to the importance of nutrition for the private sector.

7. The World Bank Group (including IFC) remains strongly committed to including nutrition within Universal health coverage and the pandemic response and we are grateful to Japan for bringing this key issue to the world’s attention.