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targeted by the Sustainable Development Goals. Several shortcomings within the
existing system should be addressed.
47. Despite the potential success of the Goals, nutrition is mentioned in only 1 of
the 169 targets, and overweight and obesity are not mentioned. More importantly,
whether the Sustainable Development Goal targets have the innovation necessary to
ensure a successful shift towards sustainable food systems and provide the
framework for global governance of agriculture, food, nutrition and health seems
doubtful. 41 In addition, some targets lack the focus necessary to enable effective
implementation, or they contribute to several Goals, thereby creating possible
conflicts. Action to meet one target could have unintended consequences on others
if they are pursued separately. Moreover, the monitoring mechanism for the Goals
based on voluntary national reporting and review mechanisms, through the highlevel political forum on sustainable development of the General Assembly, may not
be effective enough to reach agreed targets. Finally, a major shortcoming is the fact
that the human right to adequate food is not specifically articulated in the Goals.
48. Ensuring adequate financing is also a struggle. For example, to reach the
World Health Assembly goal on stunting by 2025, a doubling of government
funding and a quadrupling of donor spending is necessary. 42 Technical knowledge,
political will and efficient accountability systems are needed to reach existing
nutrition goals.
49. There are concerns that the accountability system of the Rome Declaration on
Nutrition is unclear and that its policies are fragmented. Owing to i ts multisectoral
nature, as well as the long-term impact of malnutrition on human development and
invisibility of some of its consequences, accountability is complex. As articulated in
Sustainable Development Goal 17, ensuring effective accountability requ ires a clear
understanding of data collection as well as systematic tracking systems at both the
country and global levels. The Global Nutrition Report 2016 attempts to fill the gap
by providing a data tracking system, drawing data from United Nations agen cies.
Although this might lead to criticism owing to its connection with the nutrition
industry, it is arguably the most independent mechanism to date.
C.
Private sector involvement and conflict of interest
50. Today’s nutrition governance also lacks effective mechanisms to regulate
private sector involvement in nutrition programmes. The corporate influence on
national and international food and nutrition policy spaces has become increasingly
visible as programmes seek multi-stakeholder arrangements. Both the Sustainable
Development Goals and the Second International Conference on Nutrition mention
the importance of “multi-stakeholder partnerships” with private sector participation.
51. While recognizing that companies play a big role in fighting malnutrition,
there is a danger in giving corporations unprecedented access to policymaking
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41
42
16-13441
Corinna Hawkes and Barry M. Popkin, “Can the Sustainable Development Goals reduce the
burden of nutrition-related non-communicable diseases without truly addressing major food
system reforms?”, BMC Medicine, vol. 13, June 2015.
Lawrence Haddad, “The global governance of nutrition: why it matters”, 25 February 2016.
Available from www.developmenthorizons.com/2016/02/the-global-governance-of-nutritionwhy.html.
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