This video summarizes the presentations and themes of the first Global Nutrition Symposium, hosted by the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Livestock Systems.

Well-nourished populations, especially women and children, are the central focus of efforts to nurture development and thereby sustainably reduce global hunger, malnutrition and poverty. This symposium focused on the role of nutrition in development by acknowledging the close relationship between good nutrition and other prerequisites for development.

The symposium, held on March 30, 2017, explored the realities, implications and impacts of chronic malnutrition, which leads to stunting or reduced height for age. It emphasized that increased attention should be given to understanding and exploiting the benefits and minimizing risks associated with consumption of animal-source foods (i.e., meat, milk and eggs) by the vulnerable, especially children and women. Undernutrition in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life can have lifelong, negative impacts.

The symposium also discussed ways to increase the availability, access and affordability of animal-source foods, as well as how strategic messaging on the importance of such foods is critical to increasing their consumption. Finally, the symposium explored how animal-source food consumption and hence development can be fostered by better alignment of donor efforts.