Every year, malnutrition claims the lives of 3 million children under age five and costs the global economy billions of dollars in lost productivity and health care costs. Yet those losses are almost entirely preventable. A large body of scientific evidence shows that improving nutrition during the critical 1,000 day window from a woman’s pregnancy to her child’s second birthday has the potential to save lives, help millions of children develop fully and thrive, and deliver greater economic prosperity.
Accelerating progress against malnutrition will require investment in both proven nutrition interventions and research to understand how to bring promising solutions to scale in a cost-effective manner. To inform the action needed, the World Bank, Results for Development Institute (R4D), and 1,000 Days, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) conducted an in-depth costing analysis and developed an investment framework for achieving four of the six global nutrition targets.
Investing in Nutrition: The Foundation for Development summarizes the analysis of the costs, impacts, and investments needed to achieve the targets and how governments, donors, the private sector, foundations, and others can come together to finance these at scale.
