Achieving the Millennium Development Goals through mainstreaming nutrition: speaking with one voice

At the most recent meeting of the Standing Committee on Nutrition of the UN system in Geneva in March of this year (2006) there was a dramatic shift in the tenor of the opening plenary session. Three very high-ranking officials of three of the largest implementing UN agencies (WHO UNICEF World Bank) along with WFP and FAO produced -- independently of one another -- a clear consistent message focusing on the importance of nutrition for development. In each case this was couched within the comparative advantage of each agency. It was also striking that none of the speakers came from a background of nutrition training -- one economist one public health physician one health economist and one development expert. All had been converted by enthusiastic nutrition colleagues within their particular agency and by long experience in many countries and an expanding evidence base. All referred to the same evidence base -- the Bellagio Child Survival Study Group and subsequent papers published not in nutrition or even public health journals but in medical journals (the Lancet and the British Medical Journal in particular) although the significance of this will not be discussed here. But all were somewhat perplexed as to why nutrition issues were not an automatic component of all national health and development programmes including within each agency. They had clearly used their considerable experience in the public sector to think this through especially the importance of having a common and consistent message. (excerpt)