Mission and vision
Transforming nutrition for children and women
The challenge
Child undernutrition remains a silent emergency, contributing to nearly half of all child deaths worldwide. Despite important progress, this crisis continues to unfold at an alarming scale. An estimated 148 million children under five are stunted, 45 million suffer from wasting, and 181 million face severe food poverty – lacking access to even the most basic nutritious diets. Meanwhile, nearly one in three women experience anaemia, compromising their own health and putting their babies at risk of low birthweight, preterm birth and impaired development.
At the same time, traditional funding models are fragmented and unpredictable, falling far short of what’s needed to protect children and women at scale. This is where the CNF is stepping in – to change the way nutrition is financed and delivered.
Why do we need a Child Nutrition Fund?
There is no platform to support global donors in coordinating their investments for high-impact nutrition actions.
This means that some interventions, regions or countries are oversupplied, while others are underfunded.
There is no dedicated mechanism to incentivize a transition from global funding to domestic funding.
This means that there is limited incentive for governments to commit domestic funding for essential nutrition actions.
There is no dedicated mechanism to support local manufacturing of vital nutrition supplies.
This means locally produced nutrition supplies in low- and middle-income countries can’t be procured when needed.
Our mission
The CNF is a UNICEF-led coordination and funding mechanism designed to accelerate the scale-up of sustainable policies, programmes and supplies to end child undernutrition in high-need countries.
Our vision
A world where millions of children and women have access to the essential nutrition they need to survive and thrive.
Connection to Global Goals
The CNF directly contributes to multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including:
