The 2020 report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the Asia and Pacific region, provides an update on progress towards the 2030 targets (SDGs and WHA) at the regional and country level.

The Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) under Anganwadi Services and the POSHAN Abhiyaan are important programmes to address the issue of malnutrition in the country.

With high levels of child undernutrition, made worse by the COVID-19 crisis, it is important for India to reassess public provisioning for nutrition. Higher allocations are needed to expand coverage and improve service delivery of important schemes such as Anganwadi Services and Mid-day Meal.

This brief’s focus is solely on core nutrition specific interventions for pregnant women, lactating mothers, and children under six years of age. These address the immediate determinants of fetal and child nutrition and development. Nutrition-sensitive interventions are discussed where relevant.

This report comes at a critical moment. 2021 will be a Nutrition for Growth ‘year of action’.

The National Family Health Surveys (NFHS) conducted under the aegis of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has played a crucial role in providing the Govemment of India and the stakeholders with reliable inputs to monitor the progress of various flagship programmes as well as the vision of the National Health Policy.

The UNICEF Nutrition Strategy 2020–2030: Nutrition, for Every Child outlines UNICEF’s strategic intent to support national governments and partners in upholding children’s right to nutrition, and ending malnutrition in all its forms over the next decade. Today, at least one in three children is not growing well because of malnutrition.

This report explores the state of nutrition in Odisha, assesses how nutrition outcomes changed in the state, and more importantly, and examines the road that lies ahead of Odisha on the journey to support better nutrition for the state.

Devoting public resources to reducing micronutrient deficiencies in children is essential for improved health, and is associated with large economic returns in the long-run through better productivity, lower health costs, and intergenerational transmission of these benefits.

The National Nutrition Mission or the Poshan Abhiyaan — the world’s largest nutrition programme for children and mothers — must be stepped up in order to meet the targets set by the Centre to reduce stunting, wasting, and anaemia by 2022, warns a report by NITI Aayog with only a little over a year left to reach its goals.