PARIS, 27 March 2025 - The devastating impact of UK aid cuts will be under the spotlight today as it emerges the UK Government is yet to make a financial commitment on fighting malnutrition at a summit designed to leverage billions of dollars in support.
As governments, the UN, INGOs, businesses and philanthropists gather in the French capital today for the fourth Nutrition for Growth summit, Save the Children is urging UK ministers to mobilise urgent funding to support the most vulnerable communities worldwide facing hunger.
The call comes as fresh research from the charity shows that a healthy diet is now unaffordable for nearly half of the world’s children.
About 1.12 billion children globally – or 48% of the world’s children – are unable to afford a balanced diet, said Save the Children, releasing the new data ahead of the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) summit [1 & 2].
Increases in food prices combined with increasing cost of living around the world has forced millions of families to eat less adequate, less balanced and less diverse food, putting child development and wellbeing at risk, said the aid agency.
The situation was particularly bad for children in low- and lower-middle income countries, with more than two in every three children - 68% - unable to afford a healthy diet.
The two-day summit on Thursday and Friday this week is a major international event for political and financial commitments on nutrition. The UK has not yet made a commitment and has until June to ensure it makes a financial pledge connected to the summit, of which it was a founding partner in 2013.
Callum Northcote, Head of Hunger and Nutrition at Save the Children UK, said: “That half the world’s children are unable to afford a healthy diet is a devastating statistic. This comes against a backdrop of escalating food insecurity worldwide, so it is extremely disappointing to begin a major global summit to tackle malnutrition as the UK Prime Minister cuts UK Official Development Assistance (ODA) to 0.3%.
“These cuts are a significant set-back to the important work done by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on supporting nutrition over many years. This budget reduction comes after malnutrition was disproportionately impacted by the previous UK Government’s aid cuts in 2021.
“We know that good nutrition not only saves lives but gives children the chance to live to their potential. The impact of reduced budgets will undermine any other development efforts from the UK Government, and long-term there could be a rise in deaths linked to malnutrition worldwide. We urge the UK Government to urgently reverse these cuts.”
In 2021, the N4G Tokyo summit mobilized over $27 billion through 396 registered commitments made by 181 stakeholders across 78 countries. N4G Paris is being described by organisers as an opportunity to build on momentum from Japan and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Save the Children, in coalition with other charities, has called for the UK to commit £500 million in nutrition specific funding over five years, 2025 - 2030, and to make £2.5bn of spending in other sectors nutrition-sensitive over the same period, totalling £3bn.
Yet this year’s summit comes in a vastly different global environment in relation to aid. As well as the UK, the US, Germany and France have also scaled back international assistance.
The UK’s aid budget has already faced significant cuts, with funding for nutrition disproportionately impacted by more than 60% in 2021, much higher than the 21% reduction in the overall budget. Additional cuts would not only put a strain on resources but would also eliminate essential life-saving and life-changing programmes and see significant backsliding on existing work, Save the Children said.
UK Government supported nutrition programmes have been critical in combatting malnutrition for several years. In Malawi, Save the Children's Maziko programme, part funded by the FCDO through the Power of Nutrition [3], is tackling the nation-wide issue of chronic child malnutrition. The programme combines cash transfers with guidance on nutrition, child development and how to grow nutritional, climate resilient crops.
Today, Save the Children has pledged US$663 million (£513 million) on the first day of the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit towards ending child malnutrition in some of the most challenging environments on earth.
Data launched yesterday from the Standing Together for Nutrition Consortium estimates that the collapse in nutrition funding globally may cut off treatment for 2.3 million severely malnourished children and lead to 369,000 extra child deaths each year.
Mayra Alejandra Obregon Ocoro, 29, Colombia, a national Youth Coordinator for the Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Movement [4], and who is attending the Paris summit, said: “The situation faced by the 48% of the world's children who cannot afford a balanced diet is alarming and reflects a global food crisis that we cannot ignore. In Colombia, a country with deep social inequalities, many children and young people suffer from malnutrition and do not have access to adequate food. Poverty and rising food prices have led families to prioritize quantity over quality, resulting in diets high in carbohydrates and poor in essential nutrients.
"It is critical that leaders attending the N4G summit commit to taking concrete and sustainable actions. I hope they will focus on implementing policies that reduce the cost of healthy food, promote local agriculture, and ensure equitable distribution of resources.”
Sohanur Rahman, 28, Bangladesh, a national Youth Coordinator for the Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Movement, and who is attending the Paris summit said: “The fact that 48% of the world’s children cannot afford a balanced diet is a global crisis that demands urgent action now.
“In my country Bangladesh, I have seen firsthand how rising food prices, economic inequality, and climate-induced disasters including extreme weather events like floods push families into food insecurity, forcing children to rely on cheap, nutrient-poor diets.
“At the N4G summit in Paris, leaders must commit to transformative policies that make nutritious food affordable and accessible for all. This includes strengthening social protection programs, supporting small-scale farmers, and investing in climate-resilient agriculture to safeguard food security against climate disasters.”
Notes:
[1] Based on an analysis of 167 countries for which data was available (total child population of 2.32bn), Save the Children estimates that 1.12bn (48%) are unable to afford a healthy diet. The cost of a healthy diet (CoHD) was calculated based on the latest FAO/World Bank CoHD data from 2022. Using an average of monthly inflation rates as per the FAO estimates of food inflation for 2023 - a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities - , the analyses updates the estimate of the CoHD for 2023. All prices were adjusted to 2017 dollars (Purchasing Power Parity, i.e. accounting for differences of prices in different countries). We then looked at how many people in each country cannot afford a healthy diet using the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Database. Finally, we estimate the number of children by looking at the share of children in each wealth or income quintile of the population (using the data compiled from the GLOPOP-S dataset by Ton et al. 2023). The number of children was derived using the UN World Population Prospects.
[2] The Nutrition 4 Growth (N4G) Paris Summit is taking place in Paris, France, from 27-28 March 2025 and is a key stepping stone in 2025 towards galvanizing global and national nutrition actions to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Organized every four years by the host country of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the last N4G Summit was hosted by Japan in 2021, raising $27 billion through 396 commitments from 181 stakeholders in 78 countries. The Summit will announce political and financial commitments, deliver commitments across thematic areas, and present high-level recommendations to mobilise the global and national community to achieve the renewed World Health Assembly (WHA) Global Nutrition Targets, the 2014 Rome Declaration on Nutrition, and accelerate achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The outcomes of the Summit will be endorsed in the Paris 2025 N4G Global Compact.
[3] Home | The Power of Nutrition
[4] The SUN Civil Society Network (CSN) encourages the formation of vibrant civil society alliances, with such alliances existing in 39 SUN Countries today. The network represents over 3,000 organisations locally, nationally and internationally. The CSN Secretariat is hosted by Save the Children, in the United Kingdom, overseen by a global steering committee