2024 is a chance to shape the 21st replenishment of IDA and an opportunity for IDA recipient governments to articulate a strong demand for nutrition financing
Read our first brief in the series here: IDA: a bigger and better IDA for children’s rights
With one child born into hunger every two seconds in 2023, this year’s replenishment of the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) fund is more important than ever. The fund is an essential source of concessional financing for the 75 lowest income countries around the world. Almost 800 million children live in IDA recipient countries– so achieving a bigger and better IDA through this year’s 21st replenishment round will be critical for realising children’s rights to nutritious food, as well as health, education and protection.
Future IDA funding will be critical to getting the Sustainable Development Goal for Zero Hunger (SDG2) back on track
Driven by climate-fuelled extreme weather, conflict and economic shocks, the world is facing another global food and nutrition crisis. In 2023, 281 million people experienced high levels of acute food insecurity, with many facing acute malnutrition, destitution, starvation and death. In 2022, globally there were 45 million children with wasting, of which 13.7 million had severe wasting. The consequences of a lack of nutritious food are far reaching. Nearly half of all child deaths are related to undernutrition. In Africa, stunted children achieve 0.2 to 3.6 years less in school education; and undernutrition can cost African economies up to a staggering 17% in GDP.
Existing support through IDA20 has helped the situation but is due to end in June 2025. However, there are few signs of the crisis abating, with the primary drivers such as climate change set to worsen. Therefore, it is crucial that IDA has sufficient funds to scale up support to nutrition in the future through an ambitious IDA21 replenishment.
African Governments recently came together at a Summit in Kenya to discuss the importance of a bigger and better IDA for the development of the continent. 12 of the 22 worst ‘Hunger Hotspots’ (2024) and 39 of the 75 IDA-eligible countries are in Africa - including 11 of these ‘hotspots’. IDA has been one of the biggest external funding sources for nutrition, in places like Ethiopia and Uganda.
Amidst a year of shrinking fiscal space for donors, rising debt, and growing needs, IDA’s grants and zero/low-interest loans to countries can be a lifeline for hungry and malnourished children
The Global Nutrition Report 2021 estimated an additional $39 to $50 billion is needed every year to close the finance gap and reach the nutrition targets of SDG2. Despite these needs, nutrition funding globally is stagnating when needs are rising. Official Development Assistance (ODA) to basic nutrition was at $1.1 billion in 2017 while in 2022 that figure is down to $967 million, a negative trajectory that the UK and other key donors have also followed. Yet, the Bank’s IDA fund has still represented one of the largest sources of financing for food security and nutrition, with $4.6 billion in commitments in the financial year 2023. While domestic resources remain the most important source of financing for any country’s food and nutrition security, highly concessional flows like IDA are extremely important for many LICs.
IDA has a vital leveraging function, where $1 of donor money turns into $3.50 of finance to be offered in concessional loans and grants. IDA is an important financing tool on its own, but is also complementary to its other funds – such as the Global Financing Facility (GFF). The GFF, when combined with IDA, can multiply finance, as it has done in Ethiopia since 2015, where GFF financing of $110 million mobilised $1,090 million for health and nutrition from IDA.
IDA ’s investments in nutrition are key to ending extreme poverty
Nutrition investment has a multiplier effect and is one of the most cost-effective drivers for development and prosperity. Every dollar invested in a package of nutrition interventions can yield between $4 and $35 in economic returns. Reducing malnutrition in Africa and Asia could increase a country’s economic productivity by 11% in GDP per capita.
The question of IDA financing ‘supply’ is key. The world needs a bigger and better IDA that is fit for the future including a worsening outlook for food security. Save the Children support calls from the World Bank for donor contributions to increase by 25% for IDA21 – an important step towards the longer-term ambition of significantly scaling up IDA.
However, the ‘demand’ side is also critical to financing for nutrition. When national governments prioritise nutrition investment, they can articulate the resource needs that can be met through funds like IDA. The WB should take the lead in engaging with IDA recipient governments to cultivate a clearly defined demand for nutrition financing. This should support national food security and nutrition plans, and ensure the provision of essential nutrition services. Governments can mobilise both domestic financing and show the need for important external investments and co-financing opportunities such as IDA and the GFF. The WB has been echoing the need for this country buy-in.
Yet IDA21 must resolve some key challenges to support a full recovery from the worst of the crisis
These include, but are not limited to,
- Elevating nutrition within IDA21’s ‘fragility’ lens. This means addressing the critical role that nutrition interventions play within crisis prevention, preparedness, and response within the proposed lens on Fragility and the Crisis Response Window (CRW).
- Improving speed of disbursement through the Crisis Response Window. Given the current nutrition and food security challenges, the Bank should implement reforms to allow for more efficient disbursements so countries can access sufficient and timely finance, including by reforming the eligibility criteria and trigger points.
- Reform the food insecurity trigger points to prevent rather than respond to crises. The IDA20 trigger used the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system and required countries to meet both a minimum severity level of IPC3 (crisis) and a worsening trend. Setting the bar one step short of a humanitarian crisis makes it difficult for many countries to effectively prevent a full-blown crisis. The Bank should revisit its indicators to enable earlier response to emerging events, which given the complexity, may mean WB staff using more discretion based on their assessments and best available country data. Early finance can enable early action which saves both lives and financial resources.
- Reforms to IDA reporting must focus on improving quality, including by ensuring a focus on outcomes and publishing real-time impact data to ensure effective and responsive spending. This should include clearer and more transparent reporting on disbursements, broken down by food security and nutrition using the correct codes.
In the run up to this year’s IDA21 replenishment and beyond, Save the Children will advocate for a bigger and better IDA to support children’s rights to good nutrition, as well as education, health and protection.
