A new report by the Initiative on Climate Action and Nutrition has called for urgent action to integrate nutrition into National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans.
Biodiversity Strategies are policies which provide strategic direction on the management and protection of biodiversity at the national level.
The report titled "Biodiversity and Nutrition Synergies: Evaluating National Biodiversity Strategies and Actions Plans for Integration," highlights crucial links to address global nutrition and biodiversity crises.
The stronger the link the more committed member states are to tackling the dual challenges of biodiversity loss and malnutrition as an integrated agenda.
The new report provides an analysis of 192 National Biodiversity Strategies and Actions Plans (NBSAPs), assessing the current state of nutrition-biodiversity integration and identifying critical gaps.
The release of the report comes at a time many countries are updating their NBSAPs to align with national strategies for the Goals and Targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Integrating nutrition into the plans is critical for achieving global health and environmental goals.
Ahead of the 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16), the report offers opportunities and food for thought to key policymakers and stakeholders on the critical role of nutrition in the biodiversity landscape.
According to the report, 62 per cent of NBSAPs show no intentional connection between biodiversity and nutrition.
“This signals a major opportunity for improvement,” the report states.
“Countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia and the Pacific are more likely to have higher integration, though overall levels remain low.”
The Global Alliance for improved nutrition executive director, Lawrence Haddad, said the there is need to strengthen bi-dimensional linkages between nutrition and biodiversity.
“It also demonstrates how action towards one can accelerate progress on the other. Diverse diets derived from a wide variety of plants and animals provide essential nutrients for human health,” he said.
“Preserving biodiversity also supports sustainable agricultural practices, essential for long-term food and nutrition security.”
To address the gaps, the report offers key recommendations for policymakers, building on nutrition-relevant themes in current NBSAPs.
The focus is on where co-benefits may be easily found, improving capabilities for integrating nutrition into the updates and NBSAPs’ monitoring and evaluation frameworks.
It also examines developing multi-sectoral, participatory platforms to underscore the necessity of these connections and prioritising the inclusion of women, youth, indigenous peoples and local communities in NBSAP development.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the development of concerted cross-sectoral measures to shift toward sustainable healthy diets can contribute to achieving several interrelated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and meet the aims of the Decade of Action for Nutrition (2016–2020), as well as the six global nutrition targets 2025 adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2012.
A series of voluntary targets for the control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) were also adopted in line with the political declaration of the first high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.
"This led to the adoption by the World Health Assembly of the Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases 2013–2020 with nine voluntary global targets, including that of a 25 per cent relative reduction in premature mortality from NCDs by 2025 (8)," WHO said.
"It considers unhealthy diet as one of the four greatest behavioural risk factors for NCDCs."