Three actions for tackling malnutrition and climate change simultaneously

Clearly, the effects of climate change on malnutrition require a lot more attention.  Climate change is one of the leading factors driving rapid increases in global malnutrition and extreme hunger and we need stronger political action. To do this in a meaningful way requires integration. Nutrition-climate integration is the process of planning and implementing solutions that address nutrition needs and adaptation to the impact of climate change at the same time.  

In our new report, Nutrition and climate integration for transformative actions, we identify three ways to implement nutrition and climate integration for transformative action.  

At the moment, climate change and nutrition policies are considered separately and need to be integrated more. Governments don’t sufficiently integrate nutrition within climate change in their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). These plans identify medium- and long-term adaptation needs, informed by the latest climate science. Once major vulnerabilities to climate change have been identified, the NAP process develops strategies to address them. At the same time, national and subnational policies, strategies and guidelines related to food security and nutrition don’t sufficiently integrate climate either. The lack of nutrition-climate integration in policy plans can severely limit national initiatives and investments for concrete actions that link both nutrition and climate.  

At the global level, financing and investments for nutrition-climate integration are very limited. Without adequate funding to implement national nutrition strategies and plans that are climate-sensitive, and vice versa, climate-sensitive nutrition plans, there would be insufficient progress to tackle the effects of climate change on malnutrition. Multi-year and flexible funding opportunities are essential to finance long-term programmes that build communities’ resilience to malnutrition in climate-affected contexts. 

In most of the fragile contexts where Concern  operates, the climate and malnutrition crises are interlinked. This requires us to plan and implement programmes that address both, and build on evidence of what works best in terms of integration of climate change adaptation and nutrition. Concern’s Emergency Response and Nutrition Enhancement (ERNE) programme, for instance, was implemented in contexts where climate change is a driver of food insecurity, be it through the effects of persistent drought, flooding, or as a result of driving conflict through increased pressures on land and resources.  

We have learned that effective nutrition-climate integration includes implementing nutrition-climate integration at the programme design stage, whilst prioritising the nutritionally vulnerable (children, especially those under five years of age, adolescents and women of all age), promoting gender equity in both nutrition and climate-sensitive programmes, and implementing locally-owned programmes.

Climate change and nutrition go hand in hand. In order to support communities that are most at risk of malnutrition, global leaders must consider the impact climate change has on their ability to feed themselves. 

For more information about our policy recommendations on actions to take for nutrition and climate integration, please visit this page to find our report Nutrition and climate integration for transformative actions.