Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure (a) transparency and (b) accountability in nutrition spending following its decision to discontinue reporting on the 2021 Nutrition for Growth financial commitment to spend at least £1.5 billion on nutrition objectives from 2022-2030.

Since 2010, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has reported on its nutrition-related spend across our Official Development Assistance (ODA). The latest available report captures data up to 2023 and shows that FCDO dispersed over 40 per cent of our 2021 Nutrition for Growth spend pledge during the first two years. FCDO Ministers have decided to move away from a spend focused target and instead focus on a more meaningful results target to better demonstrate the impact achieved through our programme and policy efforts to improve nutrition.

FCDO officials are currently working on proposals for a nutrition results target and will share more information on this in due course with the aim to report on nutrition results from 2026. Whilst we will no longer be reporting spend against the 2021 spend target, we do intend to continue to share our nutrition spend data as part of our established accountability mechanisms.