المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Concluding remarks

Dear Participants,

Thank you for sharing your experiences and insights on nutrition-sensitive social protection policies and programmes.  Your contributions reflected experiences from a diverse array of country contexts, including India, Togo, Ghana, Ethiopia and the Dominican Republic. Both the near universality of social protection programs and the numerous nutrition-related themes and principles highlighted (e.g.  the importance of the quality of service provided, nutrition education, contextually-specific approaches, etc.) paralleled topics explored during the recent two-day Global Forum on Nutrition-Sensitive Social Protection Programs in Moscow that coincided with this discussion.

In an effort to work towards building a shared understanding of what is being done by way of nutrition-sensitive social protection in countries around the world and the current challenges, the Forum brought together approximately 150 experts, technical practitioners and policymakers from over 20 countries—literally to the same table— to discuss and analyze case studies nutrition-sensitive social protection programs.

Clearly we are early in building a shared understanding of what we mean by nutrition-sensitive social protection and what works to improve nutrition outcomes, and there are more questions than answers. However, it is also evident from the comments, publications, and resources shared that interest and knowledge is growing.

In line with the ICN2 recommendations and as echoed during the Global Forum BRICS session, countries have shown firm commitment towards nutrition-sensitive social protection and need to work together to share good practices.

Together the online and in-person discussions culminate in a repository of experiences that can be drawn upon for lessons learned, best practices, and ideas about what works in specific country contexts. The final report from the Global Forum will be launched later this year, and combine feedback from both venues.

We encourage you to keep checking the resource section of this discussion for any updates.

Many thanks,

Lucy Basset and Ahmed Raza