During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, several major rice exporting countries, grappling with rising economic uncertainties, suspended rice exports to ensure adequate domestic supply.

Through the world health assembly (wha), countries have signed onto global nutrition targets, and as chapter 2 shows, one way to track countries’ progress is to apply these global targets to the national level.

To be effective, commitments to action must be implemented and enforced. The implementation of policies and interventions depends on converting political commitment to practical action.

As discussed in chapter 1, setting targets is one manifestation of political commitment. Countries have already made a series of commitments to attain global nutrition targets by 2025 (Panel 2.1).

On june 8, 2013, the governments of the united kingdom and brazil, and the children’s investment fund foundation (ciff) hosted a summit in London titled “Nutrition for Growth: Beating Hunger through Business and Science” (known as N4G).

Assess progress against global targets; make smart commitments; accelerate implementation; accelerate the contribution of the underlying drivers; finance the global targets; measure progress at the national and subnational level

Commitment without funding represents unfulfilled good intentions. If nutrition-promoting actions are to be implemented and targets met, they need to be financed.

The food, social, health, and living environments in which people make decisions have a huge influence on nutritional status. For optimal nutrition, these underlying factors matter.

To guide, track, and learn from our efforts to reduce malnutrition, we require credible, timely, and useful data on nutrition outcomes and inputs.

It is a formidable challenge. Every country is facing a serious public health challenge from malnutrition (IFPRI 2014). One in three people is malnourished in one form or another (IFPRI 2015a).