Nutrition is the foundation of human development, starting even before birth. A mother’s nutrition deeply impacts her child’s health, setting the stage for well-being from the very beginning. Ensuring that women and children have access to adequate nutrition is essential not only for their physical health but also to break cycles of poverty and to improve education outcomes. That’s why Canada needs to #ReachEveryChild and invest in global nutrition to help communities thrive and build a healthier, more equitable future.
Malnutrition disproportionately affects women and girls, who often eat last and least. Over one billion women and girls experience severe deficiencies in micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that the body needs, with 40% of pregnant women globally suffering from anemia often due to a lack of iron. This condition increases risks of maternal mortality and low birth outcomes, affecting generations.
Despite scientific progress and the proven success of high-impact interventions, rates of malnutrition are worsening. From 2020 to 2022, the rate of severe acute malnutrition in pregnant and breastfeeding women and adolescent girls increased by 25%.
Malnutrition is linked to nearly half of all child deaths under five. In addition, stunting (too short for age) and wasting (too thin for height) have irreversible effects, leading to cognitive delays, lower educational attainment, and limited economic opportunities.
In 2022, 148 million children were estimated to be stunted and 45 million were estimated to be wasted. In crisis-affected regions, severe wasting afflicts a child every minute.
Even before children show physical signs of malnutrition, their growing brains and bodies are negatively affected. Consequences of undernourishment and micronutrient deficiencies are long lasting and hinder full potential growth of individuals and communities they live in, resulting in a global cost of US$ 761 billion annually.
While investing in nutrition is crucial to break these cycles, failure to act early can have devastating consequences.
Canada has a unique opportunity to demonstrate leadership by committing CAD$ 750 million over the next five years at the 2025 Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit in Paris.
By scaling up evidence-based interventions in areas with high rates of malnutrition and conflict-affected settings, and targeting the root causes of malnutrition, Canada’s support could help prevent 6.2 million infant deaths and nearly one million stillbirths, contributing significantly to global health and stability. Moreover, this new pledge would be a smart investment, with every dollar invested having the potential to yield 23 dollars in economic benefits.
Occurring once every four years, N4G is the only global initiative where governments, multilateral organizations, philanthropists, donors, and the private sector make financial and policy commitments to exclusively improve nutrition, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
By pledging CAD$ 750 million at the Paris N4G summit in March 2025, Canada can reaffirm its role as a global leader in health and gender equity and influence other donors to help end hunger worldwide.
wasting
stunting
Stunting can lead to irreversible physical and cognitive damage over the lifetime and even, in the next generation. Every year, 304M IQ points and 49M school years are lost because of this condition.
low birthweight
Babies born with low birthweight are more likely to die during the first month or to suffer from stunted growth and chronic conditions like obesity and diabetes later in life. It is also estimated that low birthweights leads to 168M IQ points being lost every year.
anemia (in children)
During pregnancy, anaemia has been associated with poor maternal and birth outcomes, including premature birth, low birth weight and maternal mortality. When combining the impact of anemia on young children, adolescents and women in a year, 50 million years of healthy life were lost due to disability. Iron deficiency anemia in children is also associated with diminished cognitive ability and affects school achievement.
FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2024. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 – Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. Rome. https://doi.org/10.4060/cd1254en
Jain S, Ahsan S, Robb Z, Crowley B, Walters D. The Cost of Inaction: A Global Tool to Inform Nutrition Policy and Investment Decisions on Global Nutrition Targets. Health Policy and Planning, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae056
Shekar, Meera, Jakub Kakietek, Julia Dayton Eberwein, and Dylan Walters. 2017. An Investment Framework for Nutrition: Reaching the Global Targets for Stunting, Anemia, Breastfeeding, and Wasting. Directions in Development. Washington, DC: World Bank. https://documents.worldbank.org/. License: Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0 IGO
Shekar, Meera; Shibata Okamura, Kyoko; Vilar-Compte, Mireya; Dell’Aira, Chiara; eds. 2024. Investment Framework for Nutrition 2024. Human Development Perspectives Overview booklet. © Washington, DC: World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42164 License: CC BY3.0 IGO.
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organization (WHO), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. Levels and trends in child malnutrition: UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Group Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates: Key findings of the 2023 edition. New York: UNICEF and WHO; 2023. www.who.int/publications. CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
UNICEF. 2023. Low birthweight: A good start in life begins in the womb. https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/low-birthweight
