Participants from over 70 countries spent five days sharing experiences and reflecting on the future of child nutrition in Siem Reap, Cambodia, during the 21st Global Child Nutrition Forum (GCNF)
The 21st edition of the Global Child Nutrition Forum came to an end this Friday 6 December 2019 with a list of recommendations to governments, private sector and all involved in child nutrition and school feeding. The communiqué urges governments to commit political will and funding, as well as take ownership to coordinate and strengthen programmes. Country leaders should also adopt effective systems, including data management systems, to ensure transparency and accountability.
Recommendations to the private sector include the ask to expand and diversify its commitment to school meal programmes, as well as to leverage market knowledge, capital and human resources to drive innovation. Finally, recommendations to all involved in child nutrition include the urge to explore innovative models to resolve challenges and maximise benefits.
The group also urges all of those involved in child nutrition to encourage interactions with farmers and local communities to develop a better understanding on how to participate and increase knowledge of nutrition and food safety. Promoting the development and use of globally accepted metrics to evaluate and report the impacts of school meal programs and exploring ways to engage more youth entrepreneurship to invest in homegrown school meals businesses are also key priorities.
Daniel Balaban, Director of the WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger in Brazil, said: “I strongly believe that school feeding can have a transformative role in children´s lives and have a larger impact in their families and communities. It also impacts on the creation of opportunities and empowerment of other social groups, such as smallholder farmers”.
Here you can read the document in full:
The event
The 21st Global Child Nutrition Forum was organised by the Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF) in partnership with the World Food Programme Centre of Excellence against Hunger in Brazil and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Kingdom of Cambodia, with the support of the WFP Regional Bureau Bangkok and the WFP Country Office in Cambodia.
The Global Child Nutrition Forum brought together 357 participants from 70 countries, including high-level officials from government, multilateral institutions, and representatives of donor organisations, business sector, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and media outlets.
This was the first time the international conference was held in Southeast Asia. The forum is a learning exchange and technical assistance conference designed to support countries in the development and implementation of school feeding programmes.
Our work
The WFP Centre of Excellence against Hunger results from the joint engagement of Brazil and WFP to spur South-South cooperation and strengthen the global efforts to end hunger. The WFP Centre of Excellence in Brazil supports governments in Africa, Asia and Latin America to forge sustainable solutions of their own, via knowledge building, capacity development, and policy dialogue regarding food and nutrition security, social protection, and school meals. The WFP Centre of Excellence currently supports some 30 countries in a long-term basis to help them create innovative approaches to address the multi-dimensional issues of poverty and hunger.