On Tuesday 30th June, the APPG Nutrition for Development hosted a roundtable in Parliament to bring together policymakers, development experts, and civil society to explore how innovative financing can tackle global malnutrition.
Hosted by Rt Hon David Mundell MP, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Nutrition for Development, the briefing convened experts from UNICEF, UNICEF UK, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), together with Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and civil society partners (including representatives from the International Coalition for Advocacy on Nutrition (ICAN) UK), to examine the Child Nutrition Fund (CNF) and the broader landscape of nutrition financing at a pivotal moment for UK development policy. APPG Vice-Chair, Monica Harding MP, joined the briefing alongside Members Steve Race MP and Mike Reader MP as well as Warinder Juss MP, Baroness Leaman, and Lord Oates, and representatives from the offices of Sir Andrew Mitchell MP, Elsie Blundell MP, and Jonathan Davies MP.
With the UK preparing for its G20 leadership role and navigating significant shifts in Official Development Assistance (ODA) spending over recent years, the session offered Parliamentarians the opportunity to understand how mechanisms like the CNF can stretch development spending further, whilst also building equitable partnerships with the Global South.
Launched at the Global Food Security Summit in London in 2023, the CNF is a collaborative partnership between the UK government, UNICEF, CIFF, and the Gates Foundation. It was established to provide a unified solution to three challenges: the lack of a platform to support global donors to coordinate their investments in high-impact nutrition actions; the lack of a dedicated mechanism designed to incentivise a transition from global funding to domestic funding; and the lack of a dedicated mechanism to support local manufacturing of therapeutic and complementary foods and nutrition supplements in low- and middle-income countries,
The Fund’s purpose is to accelerate the scale-up of sustainable policies, programmes, and supplies to tackle stunting, wasting, and anaemia in children and women across 63 eligible high-need countries – including Afghanistan, the DRC, Malawi, Madagascar, Somalia, and South Sudan – with 47 countries having already received vital CNF support.
What distinguishes the CNF from traditional aid flows is its pooled, coordinated approach. By bringing together governments, donors, and partners to allocate resources strategically, the fund addresses a long-standing problem in global nutrition financing: fragmentation. Rather than donors operating in silos, the CNF directs investments toward high-impact actions, reduces duplication, and channels resources where need and potential impact are greatest.
The CNF’s ambition is to support global efforts to reach 320 million children and women annually with life-saving nutrition programmes by 2030. This includes at least 70 million women and 230 million children reached annually with services for the prevention of undernutrition.
Parliamentarians heard from Roland Kupka, UNICEF’s Senior Adviser for Financing for Child Nutrition and Development, who introduced the CNF in more detail including explaining why we need a CNF, how the CNF works, and the CNF Match Challenge which will maximise the impact of donations with a one-to-match, doubling the impact for children and women; Joanna Rea, Director of Advocacy at UNICEF UK, who provided an overview of the global state of nutrition and food security funding, as well as an update on UNICEF UK’s priorities for health and nutrition advocacy; Anna Hakobyan, Chief Impact Officer at CIFF, who spoke to CIFF’s support for the CNF and other financing frameworks for nutrition; and Angela Spilsbury, Nutrition Policy Team Leader at FCDO, who gave an overview of the UK’s role with CNF as a founding member and spoke to the FCDO’s broader strategic priorities for nutrition.
Attendees also heard from UAMH Expert Adviser Finian Ali via a video message from Nigeria. Finian illustrated the principles of the CNF’s work in Nigeria in action, including the impact of UK funding which, when combined with CIFF contributions, catalysed a $15 million co-investment from the Nigerian government to reach up to two million children with nutrient supplements.