Landscape analysis of private sector involvement in ending child wasting: Innovations, products and contributions 

GAIN, SUN Business Network, Action Against Hunger UK and the State of Acute Malnutrition 

In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals were established, including a bold commitment to eliminate all forms of malnutrition in the world by 2030. Specific targets set at the World Health Assembly included reducing the global proportion of children suffering from wasting to below 3% by 2030. Today, globally and in many countries, we are far from reaching that target. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was estimated that roughly 50 million children under the age of 5 suffer from wasting at any point in time, and less than a quarter have access to treatment. Since 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating that situation, may reverse progress on wasting reduction in some regions and even increase total cases.

The Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) movement has long identified public-private partnerships as an important area to progress global nutrition goals and has identified missed opportunities to expand that potential. There are many ways that private sector actors could contribute to the achievement of reduced child wasting through charitable giving, but also through partnerships, innovating through research and development, capacity building and scaling up identified services and products. Many of these contributions remain underexplored, in particular in the domain of contributions to the targeted prevention and management of acute malnutrition/wasting in children. 
 
This survey is being conducted by Action Against Hunger UK, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), and the SUN Business Network (SBN) to identify the spectrum of private sector engagements in nutrition identifying those most promising contributions to targeted prevention and management of acute malnutrition/wasting and related child mortality. The survey has the following key objectives:

1. Identify private sector entities with innovations, products, or services relevant for the targeted prevention and management of acute malnutrition/ wasting in children in terms of size, type, scale and scope of each of these private sector solutions, or initiatives as well as the type of partnership. (Section 1, 2).
2. Estimate the value of private sector contributions to the area in terms of the value of corporate social responsibility and direct support (Section 3).
3. Identify and map the innovations, products, or services that can be or are currently being applied to targeted prevention and management of acute malnutrition/ wasting in children (Section 4).

Identification of the gaps and challenges experienced by the private sector actors that prevent an expanded contribution in this area.

The data you provide will be included in a report on the subject and feed into an interactive map of promising ‘innovations and private sector solutions’ hosted on the State of Acute Malnutrition website and possibly elsewhere. It is hoped that the information collected will inform future dialogue between governments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector.

COMPLETE THE SURVEY

Thank you for your support!