The Child Nutrition Fund
Accelerating the scale-up of sustainable policies, programmes and supplies to end child wasting.
What is the Child Nutrition Fund?
The Child Nutrition Fund (CNF) is a financing mechanism designed to accelerate the scale-up of sustainable policies, programmes and supplies to end child wasting.
Why do we need a Child Nutrition Fund?
Because child wasting is a tragedy. Despite two decades of progress in reducing child malnutrition globally, the number of children with wasting is rising due to a perfect storm of increasing inequities, conflict and climate-driven crises.
Because child wasting is preventable. Wasting doesn’t happen when nutritious diets, essential nutrition services and positive nutrition and care practices are available to women and children. However, the prevention of wasting can’t be achieved with only short-term funding, available only during emergencies and earmarked only for treatment.
Because we can and must act fast. The current global and national responses to child wasting are woefully inadequate, particularly in high-prevalence, high-mortality settings. We can and must transform how we protect children from life-threatening wasting in early life.
What actions will the Child Nutrition Fund scale up?
The CNF is designed to support the scale-up of five essential government-led actions for the early prevention, detection and treatment of child wasting in early childhood:
- Support for exclusive and continued breastfeeding in the first two years of life, with responsive feeding, stimulation and care, including adequate counselling and support to caregivers and families.
- Adequate complementary foods, with micronutrient supplements and home fortification with micronutrient powders, including timely and quality counselling and support to caregivers and families.
- Weight gain monitoring, nutrition counselling, micronutrient supplements, deworming prophylaxis, and malaria control for women, particularly during pregnancy.
- Early detection of child wasting using mid-upper arm circumference measurement and treatment with ready-to-use therapeutic foods through community-based programmes, with adequate training, supervision and referral.
- Food supplements for young children under 5 and for women, particularly those who are pregnant and breastfeeding.
How will the Child Nutrition Fund add value?
The CNF aims to improve the coordination and transparency of financing for wasting by offering UNICEF and its partners a range of tools designed to achieve three specific goals:
Goal 1: Incentivize, increase and prioritize the allocation of global resources to essential programmes and supplies for the early prevention, detection and treatment of child wasting.
Goal 2: Incentivize, increase and prioritize the allocation of domestic resources to programmes and essential supplies for the early prevention, detection and treatment of child wasting.
Goal 3: Ensure greater availability, accessibility and timeliness of essential supplies for the early prevention, detection and treatment of child wasting.
