UNITED NATIONS SYSTEM Standing Committee on Nutrition

Recognizing that: • The global burden of maternal and child undernutrition remains unconscionably large, and is the single greatest constraint facing global development efforts. • A renewed and strengthened evidence base exists for a set of essential nutrition interventions that if effectively targeted to mothers and children from conception to two years of age, could prevent at least a quarter of child deaths under 36 months of age, and reduce the prevalence of stunting by about a third. • Although this important set of interventions cannot replace socio-economic development, they can help accelerate the reduction of maternal and child undernutrition, especially when main-streamed into efforts to tackle poverty, improve food security and livelihood support, and strengthen health service delivery. • Remarkably little is being done to tackle the problem of maternal and child undernutrition, especially in the countries most affected. Increased mobilization is therefore needed at all levels of society in order to act at scale with this set of essential nutrition interventions. • The recent increases in food prices and the reduction of grain stocks to a 30 year low threaten the capacity to provided assistance and ensure the right to food, especially in those nations showing least progress towards achieving the non-income targets of MDG1. • Global nutrition leadership needs to be further strengthened in order to facilitate technical and policy consensus that will permit accelerated reduction of maternal and child undernutrition.