Building together: how multi-year partnerships empower national leadership on nutrition

Solving undernutrition isn’t just about delivering more services. It’s about building the systems, leadership, and long-term financial investments needed to make sure every child and woman gets the nutrition they need – not just today, but for years to come. That’s where the Child Nutrition Fund’s (CNF) multi-year partnership model comes in.

Through the Programme Window of the CNF, governments and donors come together around a shared goal: to create a durable enabling environment that promotes government ownership of national nutrition programmes and leverages domestic investments for high-impact interventions. This approach is especially important in countries facing the highest burden of undernutrition.

A smarter way to fund nutrition

Unlike short-term grants or one-off donations, CNF’s multi-year partnerships are designed to strengthen national ownership of nutrition programming. By aligning with government priorities and commitments, they gradually unlock increasing levels of domestic investment – ultimately surpassing CNF contributions over time. CNF funding is flexibly allocated across our priority areas of interventions in close consultation with governments, based on country needs, existing national financing, and the potential for long-term, sustainable impact.

This function of the Programme Window supports a broader effort to help countries deliver more effective, better-coordinated nutrition services. This initial CNF support aims to catalyze multi-year fiscal planning, strengthening supply chains, health systems, data and governance related to nutrition programming.

What makes these partnerships unique is the emphasis on both CNF and domestically-committed financing is in line with national nutrition priorities. As such, governments don’t just receive support – they’re active partners in planning and delivery. This means governments commit to co-financing nutrition programmes with their own domestic resources.

What multi-year commitments make possible

Longer-term partnerships allow the CNF and national governments to plan more confidently and deliver more effectively. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• More sustainable financing. The Programme Window is designed to unlock more domestic investment by giving governments the confidence that they’re not acting alone. It’s a bridge from donor support to long-term national financing.
• Shared accountability. All results – financial and programmatic – are reported in a single, unified way. This gives donors clear visibility into how their contributions are making a difference
• Better alignment with national plans. Multi-year support means funding can be synchronized with government budgeting cycles, leading to better integration and long-term impact.
• Stronger systems. Rather than patching problems, countries can use funding to build stronger supply chains, expand training for frontline health workers, and improve nutrition monitoring systems.

A platform for shared progress

The multi-year partnership function of the Programme Window offers a way to support systemic, high-impact progress in tackling children’s and women’s undernutrition in some of the world’s most vulnerable settings. And because the funding is pooled, each contribution helps drive a coordinated, wide-reaching effort, rather than a stand-alone initiative.

These partnerships are not just about financial contributions to an immediate issue – they’re about creating the conditions for real, lasting change through catalytic investments in crucial, but sustainable nutrition programmes It’s a way to work together, not just to respond to today’s challenges, but to build stronger national systems and a healthier future for every child and woman.