Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit

Peter Bone Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that the House authorities request people to wear face coverings, except when they are speaking in the debate. I am also asked to remind Members to have a covid lateral flow test twice weekly if coming on to the parliamentary estate—that may be done either at the testing centre on the estate or at home—and to space yourselves out. Clearly, we have spaced ourselves out nicely already.

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the 2021 Tokyo Nutrition for Growth summit.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for affording me the opportunity to propose the motion.

It is almost exactly a year since we last gathered in Westminster Hall to debate the role of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in tackling global malnutrition. At the time, I, the all-party parliamentary group on Nutrition for Growth—which I co-chair with Lord Collins of Highbury—and the Members present at the debate urged the FCDO to make an early Nutrition for Growth commitment at an event co-hosted by the Governments of Canada and Bangladesh. Indeed, the UK was represented at that event. Of course, it took place because the Nutrition for Growth summit had been postponed for a year because of covid. The summit is finally scheduled to happen in just a few days.

On 7 and 8 December, the Government of Japan will convene Governments, philanthropists, non-governmental organisations and business leaders in an online summit to commit finances and to make policy changes that will help to end malnutrition. It will be the fourth Nutrition for Growth summit since the initiative was launched by David Cameron and the UK Government in 2013. The focus of the Nutrition for Growth APPG had obviously been on the Tokyo summit, but the delay because of covid has allowed us to continue to press the issue at every parliamentary opportunity. I thank our secretariat, Results UK, and Tom Guha in particular, for their help and support in doing so.

I also took the opportunity to meet the Prime Minister last week to discuss the issues and to reaffirm the prime ministerial support that Nutrition for Growth has always enjoyed. I know, therefore, that he will be taking a significant interest in the summit and its outcome, and he wants to see the continuation of the global leadership that the UK has demonstrated to date.

Before I get on to the summit itself, I will lay out why malnutrition is a problem that demands our urgent attention. I will start with one very grim statistic: in 2019, more than 5 million children under five died. Malnutrition was linked to 45% of those deaths. That is a staggering number, and the reason for it is that malnutrition during critical periods of growth—for example, during pregnancy or the early years—stunts the growth of the immune system, making children more likely both to get ill and to die as a result.

The problem does not stop there. In 2020, 149 million children worldwide suffered chronic health conditions due to stunted growth. That number is more than double the population size of the UK. In some regions, such as central Africa, stunting affects 40% of all children. Malnutrition not only has dire health consequences, but malnourished children are 13% less likely to be in the correct school year for their age. Moreover, the World Bank estimates that malnutrition costs some countries up to 11% of GDP annually through productivity losses and healthcare costs.

Nutrition is a foundational investment in people. It prevents ill health, rather than treating it, it ensures that children learn at school rather than simply attend, and it sets children up to realise their future potential in adult life. It is for this reason that Nobel economists describe nutrition as

“the most effective development investment that could be made, with massive benefits for a tiny price-tag.”

Whatever the Government’s position on the overseas aid budget, I am sure that we all agree that taxpayers’ money should be spent as impactfully as possible. Therefore, we must prioritise nutrition and use summits such as Nutrition for Growth to co-ordinate our approach with other countries to maximise its impact even further.

There is some good news. Although the problem of malnutrition is all too prevalent, the number of under-five deaths worldwide has more than halved since 1990 and the number of stunted children has decreased by 11% in the past 20 years, from 203 million to 149 million. The figure is enormous, but that is still a monumental achievement that shows that action and global co-operation to address malnutrition have worked.

Progress is now under threat. Covid has closed health centres, and pushed food prices up and wages down. As a result, it is predicted that an additional 283,000 children under five will die from malnutrition between 2020 and 2022, which is a shocking equivalent to 225 more children dying every day. In the same period, it is predicted that an additional 3.6 million children will become stunted.

We cannot stand by as years of progress unravel in this way. I have the following calls on the Minister today. Will she confirm that the UK Government will make a pledge at the Nutrition for Growth summit next week? Will the UK Government commit to reach 50 million women, adolescent girls and children with high-impact nutrition interventions by 2025, which would be consistent with the commitment they gave at the last Nutrition for Growth summit? Will she ensure that her Department has the funding required to meet that target? NGOs estimate that roughly £120 million per year is required for nutrition-specific programmes, but that accounts for just 1% of official development assistance. Will the FCDO increase the impact of other UK aid spending by adding nutrition objectives to £680 million of programming in other areas?

That is not an ask for new money; it is about targeting other programmes, such as agricultural or social protection schemes, on areas with a high prevalence of malnutrition. Will the Government and the FCDO commit to implement the OECD’s policy marker for nutrition at programme design phase, to ensure that the Minister’s Department proactively considers how nutrition can be woven into programmes? These are not just arbitrary requests or calls for more money. Each commitment would make a real difference to the lives of millions of malnourished women, children and adolescent girls.

To conclude, let me give just one example of the difference that such commitments can make, by speaking about Halima. Halima was 17 months old when she was admitted to hospital in Mogadishu. She was dangerously underweight and had peeling skin, swollen limbs and brittle hair. As a result of UK funding, Halima was given ready-to-use therapeutic food at the hospital, and her mother, Fatuma, was supported with a cash transfer scheme that enabled her to provide her daughter with a healthy, balanced diet. I am sure we are all pleased to know that after five months, Halima was bouncy, bubbly and healthy. As a direct result of decisions made in this place and by the UK Government, Halima survived.

Let us grasp the opportunity that the Nutrition for Growth summit next week affords, to ensure that there are more positive outcomes like Halima’s. I look forward to the debate and to the Minister’s positive response.