Leaving no one behind in the fight against malnutrition

In addition, 151 million children are too short for their age, 51 million are too thin, and millions more suffer from deficiencies of vitamins and minerals essential for their healthy development. Hunger and malnutrition continue to hinder the life chances and potential of each of these individuals, and impose a massive human and economic toll on the countries.

The Department for International Development (DFID) is the main agency in the United Kingdom (UK) that makes policies, allocates financing, and implements programmes to fight the scourge of malnutrition through Official Development Assistance (ODA). This report looks at DFID’s nutrition-relevant ODA disbursements from 2013 -2016 (i.e. from the year of the Nutrition for Growth initiative, which significantly increased UK nutrition investments, to the most recent year for which data is available) and maps them against the global burden of malnutrition using the comprehensive Global Hunger Index (GHI) over the same timeframe. Using this analysis it seeks to assess whether DFID’s investments are at risk of leaving vulnerable people, and countries with a high burden of malnutrition, behind.