ECOSOC Management Segment meeting, Item 14. Implementation of General Assembly resolutions 50/227, 52/12 B, 57/270 B, 60/265, 61/16, 67/290, 68/1, 72/305 and 75/290 A and B;[...]

ECOSOC Management Segment meeting, Item 14. Implementation of General Assembly resolutions 50/227, 52/12 B, 57/270 B, 60/265, 61/16, 67/290, 68/1, 72/305 and 75/290 A and B; Introduction of the note by the SG submitting the report of UN-Nutrition

Anna Horner, Senior Coordinator, UN Nutrition

10/06/2025

Your Excellencies, delegates, ladies, and gentlemen.

I am speaking as Senior Coordinator of UN-Nutrition, the United Nations mechanism whose mission is to leverage the collective strength of the UN to respond to malnutrition in all its forms. We bring together 15 UN entities with a mandate and interest in nutrition.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak about our 2024 achievements and future plans. More detailed information is presented in the report submitted to this committee, including the important work accomplished by individual member agencies, and we welcome further discussions with any interested parties to advance our joint objectives for nutrition. 2

Let me begin by underlining a simple truth: to meet our goal of ending malnutrition, policy coherence and coordination are not optional-they are essential. Thinking, working, and speaking as one are indispensable for supporting nutrition action at scale.

But why scale up efforts? Improving nutrition is one of the most costeffective investments in global development. Recent evidence shows that an exceptional return of 23 US dollars can be generated for each 1 US dollar invested.

UN-Nutrition has been, and continues to be, actively engaged at global and national levels in pursuit of its mission of joined-up, collaborative and efficient action to end malnutrition globally.

Throughout 2024, our members engaged in a participatory process to help optimize our efficiency and effectiveness. As a result, today there is a renewed commitment across member agencies to greater alignment, increased efficiency, streamlined working processes, and an update on key focus areas.

Meanwhile, in 2024, UN-Nutrition firmly engaged in the organisation of the successful N4G Paris Summit. UN-Nutrition was part of all of its working groups and facilitated the development of its Principles of Engagement and Commitment Guide as well as led outreach to mobilise commitments. The summit mobilized over 28 billion US dollars to reach nutrition-related Sustainable Development Goals. Over 400 policy and financial commitments have been registered to date.

UN-Nutrition has also been contributing heavily to a number of other key advocacy, policy engagement and policy alignment fora, including the 3 Committee on World Food Security and the lead-up preparation for the upcoming UN Food Systems Summit +4 Stocktake. UN-Nutrition co-led the Secretariat of the Coalition for Healthy Diets from Sustainable Food Systems for Children and All, engaging on a number of key action areas with an increasing number of member states and partners.

Advancements in coordination were also noted at country level. According to the 2024 UN-Nutrition country survey, 83 percent of the responding countries reported the presence of a functional coordination structure for nutrition, ensuring improved alignment and efficiency for nutrition impact. Substantial progress in coordination over the previous two years was reported in 30 percent of them.

I take the opportunity to thank the Government of Ireland who remained a key partner of UN-Nutrition in supporting countries throughout 2024. Their contribution ensured direct support to nutrition coordination in several high undernutrition-burdened countries, generating learning that will now be deployed to many more.

Several other strategic engagements were fostered in 2024 to promote nutrition integration into policies for climate action, environmental protection, education, agrifood systems transformation, social protection, and health, among others. Of particular interest was facilitation of the Nutrition Technical Working Group of the UN Non-Communicable Disease Task Force, leading advocacy for addressing obesity and diet-related NCDs at the Fourth High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of NCDs (HLM4).

As our 2024 work shows, coordination among UN-Nutrition members transcends mere joint programming. It is about strategic, aligned 4 engagement with countries and global players. It is about advocating, influencing, and aligning for accelerated action and impact.

In 2025 and beyond, UN-Nutrition members will continue to strengthen this pathway with commitment to increased thought leadership, advocacy and cooperation.

Worringly, overseas development assistance is shrinking, while nutrition challenges are growing-driven in part by escalating environmental and humanitarian crises. In such times, policy alignment and integration are more critical than ever to improve efficiency and maximize impact- essentially, to achieve more with less.

We must continue to unite our efforts as it is our strongest lever to scale up nutrition action, transform food systems to deliver healthy diets, and improve the health of people and the planet, leaving no one behind.

I look forward to your remarks and questions.

Thank you.