Knowledge Hub
Following the 2025 Nutrition for Growth summit in Paris last week, Anushree Rao, Director of Advocacy and Institutional Relationships at Concern Worldwide (UK), said:
"The absence of a financial commitment from the UK at this year’s Nutrition for Growth summit, especially in light of the recently announced UK aid cuts, is extremely disappointing. This unfortunately will limit the government’s ability to be a strong and credible partner in tackling global malnutrition.
At a time of declining global support for aid and rising malnutrition, the UK Government should be stepping up to tackle the global malnutrition crisis. It is estimated that the collapse in nutrition funding globally may cut off life-saving treatment for 2.3 million severely malnourished children annually and lead to 369,000 extra child deaths each year.
We know that ensuring good nutrition for all is imperative to achieving greater health, education and economic outcomes. Cuts to UK aid will jeopardise progress made so far in reducing malnutrition and threaten future progress. This is a real shame as funding to nutrition was already disproportionately cut by over 60% in the 2021 round of aid cuts.
Investing in nutrition improvement efforts can help reduce half of all young child deaths, promote better early childhood development, and reduce vulnerability to disease while also delivering high returns of investment of £23 for each pound invested.
We welcome the UK’s commitment to making nutrition an integral part of development plans through the Global Nutrition Compact. However, we urge the UK Government to complement this with the right level of investment, after the completion of the Spending Review to ensure continued prevention and treatment of malnutrition, especially for young children, women, and adolescent girls in communities facing some of the worst levels of poverty and malnutrition globally."
For more information or interview requests, please contact Nicole Bayes-Fleming at [email protected]
