On 4 February 2025, the APPG co-hosted a reception in Parliament, Looking Ahead to Nutrition for Growth 2025, in partnership with the International Coalition for Advocacy on Nutrition (ICAN) UK, a network of more than 30 UK-based organisations collaborating to save and improve lives through better nutrition.
The reception aimed to build Parliamentary momentum and support for the Nutrition for Growth (N4G) Summit in March 2025, raise the profile of N4G with Parliamentarians, and champion the role of the UK in N4G and UK leadership on global nutrition beyond N4G.
Co-Chair, David Mundell MP, opened the event and was followed by speakers Sayyeda Salam, Executive Director of Concern Worldwide UK, Fatima Askira, Founder of BOWDI (Borno Women Development Initiative), and Misan Harriman, activist, photographer, and filmmaker who is a Save the Children Ambassador. The Minister for Africa, Lord Collins of Highbury – a former Co-Chair of the APPG – also spoke, and the APPG’s Co-Chair, Steve Race MP, made closing remarks.
The reception was attended by a number of cross-party Parliamentarians including the APPG’s Vice-Chair, Monica Harding MP, APPG Members Lord Cameron of Dillington, Baroness Featherstone, Alice MacDonald MP, Wendy Morton MP, and Lord Purvis of Tweed, as well as Bobby Dean MP, Josh Fenton-Glynn MP, and Lord Oates.
Representatives of ICAN UK at the reception included Action Against Hunger UK, Concern Worldwide UK, Results UK, Save the Children UK, The Power of Nutrition, UNICEF UK, and World Vision UK. They were joined by Eleanor Crook Foundation (ECF), GAIN (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition), ONE, The End Fund, World Food Programme (WFP), International Committee of the Red Cross (IRC), and delegates from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), the French Government, and University College London.
Ahead of the event, ICAN UK published a briefing titled: Nutrition at the Heart of International Development: ICAN UK Recommendations to the FCDO for N4G 2025. The briefing underscores the critical importance of N4G as a pivotal moment to change track and the opportunity it affords global leaders, including the UK, to make significant commitments to tackle the rise in malnutrition. At the reception, Sayyeda Salam outlined some of ICAN UK’s core policy and financial recommendations, including investing £500 million in nutrition-specific programmes, ensuring £2.5 billion of Official Development Assistance (ODA) is nutrition-sensitive from 2025-2030, and integrating nutrition across key sectors, including climate, health, and agriculture. You can read ICAN UK’s recommendations, here: ICAN UK – Action Against Hunger