Japan

London 2013

1. Commit to Japan's Strategy on Global Health Diplomacy and its policy relevance with nutrition.

2. Introduce ongoing public–private partnership in India, Bangladesh, and Ghana, with particular focus on Ghana’s trilateral partnership between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Ajinomoto, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

3. Multilateral partnership including SUN and with the World Food Programme (WFP).

Reported progress

1. Japan has recognized nutrition as an important cornerstone for achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC). In this regard, Japan has committed to host the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit in December 2021 to accelerate global efforts for improving malnutrition. As a result, 396 commitments from 181 stakeholders were submitted, which demonstrates a high level of interest, willingness and desperate need for improving nutrition at a crucial time. More than US$27 billion was pledged to address the global malnutrition and hunger crisis. Prime Minister of Japan, Mr. KISHIDA announced nutrition-related assistance of over　300 billion Japanese yen, equivalent to 2.8 billion USD.

As an outcome of the Summit, the Tokyo Compact on Global Nutrition for Growth was issued with endorsement of 215 stakeholders including 65 governments, 11 international organizations, 60 private sectors, and 58 civil society. The Compact indicates a direction for the international society to improve nutrition.

(Note)(1)The total amount of nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive projects extracted from all the bilateral cooperation projects implemented by JICA in 2020 (calendar year, disburse-based).

2. JICA seeks to further strengthen public-private partnerships (PPPs) working on improvement of all forms of malnutrition in reaching sustainable development goal 2 (SDG 2) with a total number of ３ nutrition-specific and -sensitive ongoing projects within JICA’s PPPs scheme, which also helps private companies to incorporate SDGs into their business strategies. Moreover, “Nutrition Japan Public Private Platform (NJPPP)” co-chaired by JICA and JAFIC (Japan Food Industry Center), was launched in 2016 to promote sustainable commercial business engaged in nutrition improvement activities of private sectors. The secretariat and JICA have been supporting its members to build their business models to address malnutrition and also offer JICA’s PPPs scheme as another pathway to drive business for improved nutrition. These private-sector-driven work sessions divided into several thematic areas under NJPPP enabled many private companies and enterprises to make commitments at the Tokyo N4G Summit in 2021.

NJPPP ongoing projects and a survey are as follows:

・Workplace Nutrition Project in Indonesia

-provides nutrition-balanced meal through catering company

・ “Development of Enlightening health checkup and Nutrition Improvement program in Vietnam (Site-visit survey)

　-plans to introduce an innovative health check-up business model utilizing industry-government-academia-private technology and knowledge in Japan.

・ A survey of workplace nutrition improvement projects through catering services in Myanmar” Project

- A survey to select a factory to be provided nutritionally balanced diets and nutrition　 education for better productivity of companies

(Note) (2)To strengthen the momentum of IFNA, a high-level event was held in Yokohama City, Japan, at the margin of the Seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD7) in August, 2019.

3. JICA, as a principle executive organization of Japanese ODA, has been implementing a great number of bilateral cooperation projects concerning nutrition mainly in Africa and Asia, which amount to a total of approximately USD 1,187 million(1) . In parallel, JICA is also playing a leading role in the promotion of “Initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa (IFNA)”(2) which was established in 2016 with an aim of facilitating multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder nutrition interventions in Africa.

The ‘Guiding Principle of IFNA’ stresses in its preamble that IFNA is to align with other international frameworks including SUN. In this regard, JICA has been continuously implementing the training courses "Improvement of Maternal and Child Nutrition" and "Nutrition Improvement through Agriculture" designed for the relevant government officials from SUN member countries since 2014. In 2021, the 68 trainees from SUN member countries, including 51 trainees from Africa, participated in the training course. Furthermore, JICA President Shinichi Kitaoka was appointed by the Secretary General of the United Nations to a member of the SUN Lead Group in June 2019. JICA attended the annual meeting of the Group (on-line) in June 2021 and committed its contribution to nutrition improvement in developing countries through various activities including IFNA, making active use of Japan's expertise and experience. In addition, JICA attended recent Lead Group Meeting (on-line) in November 2021, and discussed the direction of the SUN Movement based on the new strategy.

IFNA has been operated in close partnership with multiple international organizations and WFP is one of the IFNA Steering Committee (IFNA-SC) (3) members being a driving force of IFNA. Based on the cooperation agreement between JICA and WFP signed in 2019. JICA and WFP further signed project-based collaboration agreements of total 2.7 million USD, for maternal and child nutrition in Madagascar and for home-grown school feeding in Sierra Leone, in response to the harsh situation of nutrition in both countries under the pandemic.

In order to address the deteriorating food security and nutrition status due to conflicts, climate change and socio-economic impact of COVID-19, Japan enhanced cooperation with WFP and increased its contribution to WFP over 30 million USD in 2021, in comparison with the amount in 2020.

(Note) (3) IFNA-SC members (10 orgs): AfDB, FAO, IFAD, JICA, JIRCAS, NEPAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO and WB