Devex Dish: What WHA accomplished for nutrition — and the questions that remain

It’s World Hunger Day, a day dedicated to combating hunger worldwide. Even as the number of food-insecure people is on the rise, the 78th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, brought a bright spot for nutrition advocates: Countries endorsed two resolutions that could galvanize action on maternal and child nutrition. Now comes the big question: How will it all get funded? 

Last Friday, countries recommitted to tackling malnutrition in mothers, infants, and young children by extending the deadline for meeting the six targets of a global plan on the matter to 2030. The original deadline was this year. And though there has been progress since the plan was first adopted in 2012 — namely, a decline in child stunting and wasting, and increased rates of exclusive breastfeeding — countries are far from meeting the targets, especially those on the prevalence of low birth weight and anemia.

The extension introduces new and more ambitious indicators to boost breastfeeding rates and tackle obesity in children. It also calls for diversifying diets.

“Every percentage point reduction in stunting, wasting, and anemia, and every step forward in reducing obesity represents lives improved, potential unlocked, and healthier futures for generations,” according to a statement from Ireland, which led the resolution alongside Ethiopia.

Then on Monday, countries endorsed another resolution committing to regulate the digital marketing of formula milk and baby foods by expanding the provisions of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes — a landmark agreement passed by WHA in 1981 which aims to protect caregivers from aggressive or misleading claims by the baby food industry about the benefits of formula milk products. But new advertising tactics have proliferated in recent years, namely via social media influencers and digital advertising that targets pregnant women and new parents, often with the undisclosed financial backing of baby food companies. Afshan Khan, a U.N. assistant secretary-general and coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement, calls these tactics an “attack on breastfeeding.” The resolution calls on countries to build systems for monitoring and enforcement.

A big theme at the World Health Organization’s annual gathering has been doing more with less, as Western donors such as the United States and United Kingdom cut development assistance and domestic budgets are stretched thin. That’s where catalytic philanthropy can help, Anna Hakobyan of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and Matt Freeman of Stronger Foundations for Nutrition write in an opinion piece for Devex.

“Philanthropy cannot serve as a stopgap to falling public funding for business-as-usual programs,” they write. “Instead, it must act as a force multiplier — seeding innovative solutions, de-risking investments, and influencing systemic change at scale.” That means, for example, helping global south countries stretch domestic resources further through mechanisms such as the Child Nutrition Fund, where philanthropy matches countries’ own resources to scale up access to nutrition services.

Opinion: As the world recommits to nutrition targets, financing must follow

Background: Nutrition issues to watch at the 78th World Health Assembly

Don’t miss: WHA78 is over — but there’s more work to be done

See also: What is the Child Nutrition Fund? (Pro)

With the fourth Financing for Development summit in Seville, Spain, just weeks away, Devex Pro is hosting a virtual event series, starting today, to map what’s next for development finance. Join us soon at 12 p.m. ET (6 p.m. CET) to explore whether MDBs are truly equipped to absorb more risk, unlock more private capital, and anchor development challenges including food and nutrition funding in a post-aid reality. Register now.

‘A fig leaf for violence and displacement’

Heartbreaking images of emaciated babies in Gaza are becoming ubiquitous as Israel has blocked nearly all aid from entering the territory for nearly three months. Children and the elderly are dying of starvation, according to aid groups and Palestinian officials, as the entire population of 2.1 million faces the risk of famine.

But a controversial new U.S. and Israeli-backed system for distributing food aid that launched Monday has drawn sharp criticism from the U.N. and aid groups, who assert that Israel is trying to use food as a weapon to control Gazans. Some of the NGOs that the organizers have named as partners tell Devex they have nothing to do with it. The private, newly established Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, or GHF, is trying to coordinate aid distribution in Gaza, primarily in the south, in a handful of “secure distribution sites” where Palestinians will have to submit to biometric checks. The plan closely resembles a separate proposal that Israel has privately floated — and at one point the U.S. tried to tap former World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley to help lead it.

On Sunday, the day before GHF was set to begin operating, its executive director, Jake Wood, resigned, saying that it is “not possible” to implement the initiative “while also strictly adhering to humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.” And on Monday, chief operating officer David Burke also resigned. The first days of operation have been chaotic, with hungry people storming the center and Israeli troops firing shots.

In a briefing to the U.N. Security Council on May 13, Tom Fletcher, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, said the plan would set an “unacceptable” precedent for aid delivery and called it a “fig leaf for further violence and displacement.”

“The Israeli-designed distribution modality is not the answer,” he said. “It makes aid conditional on political and military aims. It makes starvation a bargaining chip.”

Israel has pushed for an alternative system for aid delivery in Gaza because it says Hamas is seizing aid. Aid agencies and the U.N. — most recently WFP’s Cindy McCain — have refuted those allegations.  Meanwhile Israel has completely destroyed Gaza’s agricultural lands, harming people’s ability to feed themselves and heightening the risk of famine. Less than 5% of the territory’s cropland is able to be cultivated, according to a new geospatial assessment from the Food and Agriculture Organization and the United Nations Satellite Centre.

Read: Gaza aid plan under fire as NGOs deny involvement

Background: Trump administration pushes controversial Gaza relief plan on UN 

See also: ‘Nothing is left’ — the collapse of Gaza’s agricultural sector 

Fast paste 

For months, the only barrier to moving more than 400,000 boxes of lifesaving peanut paste from two U.S.-based factories to the malnourished children abroad was a transportation contract signed by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The companies — Rhode Island-based Edesia and Georgia-based Mana Nutrition — were in danger of shutting down within weeks due to payment delays and contract cancellations by USAID, their main funder.

“We were only running two lines for months, trying to make our current order from 2024 take as long as humanly possible to buy us time to get answers for what’s next,” Edesia CEO Navyn Salem tells my colleague Elissa Miolene.

That all changed last week when, out of the blue, the companies got a short email from the U.S. government. “We were like, is this a mistake?” says Mana CEO Mark Moore.

The U.S. said it was amending their expiring contracts, allowing them to start up production again. That cleared the way for Edesia and Mana to begin producing around $50 million worth of the paste — called ready-to-use therapeutic food, or RUTF — which totals about 1.4 million boxes, between the two nonprofits. That would mean three to six months of operation for both, and enough product to feed more than 1 million children.

It’s a temporary fix, to be sure. “This is a Band-Aid,” Moore says. “But it’s a great Band-Aid.”

Read: Aid factories reboot as US quietly amends food contracts 

Background: Why are 400,000 boxes of food for malnourished kids stuck in the US?

Now you seed it, now you don’t

Amid the chaos of USAID’s dismantling and President Donald Trump’s slashing of U.S. foreign aid, we’ve been wondering what’s happening with various U.S.-funded programs.

Last week at the World Seed Congress in Istanbul, Turkey, I asked Cary Fowler about the fate of the Vision for Adapted Crops and Soils, or VACS, a U.S.-led initiative for climate-resilient agriculture that he spearheaded while serving as U.S. special envoy on global food security under the Biden administration. Under Trump, the initiative’s page on the State Department’s website has been archived — and Fowler, along with those who worked with him, has departed.

But VACS lives on, he tells me, through a partnership between FAO and CIMMYT, the Mexico City-based international maize and wheat improvement center that is a member of the CGIAR global agricultural research network. A secretariat is now being formed at CIMMYT, with the organization’s chief of staff, Daniela Vega, serving as interim executive secretary. “We did not want this to be a U.S.-copyrighted project,” Fowler said of VACS. Ten countries have put money on the table, and some private companies have given in-kind contributions, he added. CIMMYT is partnering with many of its member centers and local organizations in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Senegal, and elsewhere on crop research and farmer trainings to grow pearl millet, finger millet, pigeon pea, cowpea, mung bean, and amaranth.

And what about the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, or FEWS NET, the USAID-funded humanitarian planning tool that was once the gold standard for predicting hunger crises? It’s back … kind of. After going dark just days after Trump took office, the platform quietly resurfaced this month. “The FEWS NET Decision Support contract, which is implemented by Chemonics, issued its first global food security report since January on May 20,” a Chemonics spokesperson tells my colleague Ayenat Mersie.

At the moment, the website hosts three reports: a new one covering the world’s most severe food crises from May to September 2025, and two older reports from 2024. There’s also a notice: “After a brief pause in operations, FEWS NET’s analysis and reporting is restarting. We will be working to return to the monthly reporting our audience has come to expect.” In the meantime, users can email the site for historical data.

Background: USAID-funded famine early warning system goes offline due to aid freeze

Chew on this 

The International Food Policy Research Institute’s 2025 annual report examines the past 50 years of food policy research and assesses how it can equip policymakers to meet future challenges. [IFPRI]

Agriculture is missing in climate action. NDCs can change that. [Devex Opinion]

Funding cuts to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are harming the country’s ability to produce lifesaving weather forecasts for its own citizens as well as the quality of climate reports globally. [Devex]

Infectious animal diseases are affecting new areas and species, undermining global food security, human health, and biodiversity, according to the first State of the World’s Animal Health report. [World Organisation on Animal Health]

Ayenat Mersie and Rebecca Root contributed to this edition of Devex Dish.