The Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit 2021 (N4G) will be held in December 2021. This summit is an initiative to promote international efforts to resolve malnutrition in conjunction with the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The first summit was held in London and then in Rio de Janeiro. As the host country of the Olympics and Paralympic, Tokyo will host the summit this time. Originally scheduled to be held in December 2020, the summit has been postponed for one year in view of the ongoing spread of the new coronavirus infection. 

N4G is an international initiative that brings together governments, donors, philanthropists, businesses, NGOs and other stakeholders. Beginning with its launch in December 2020, the year will be the "Nutrition for Growth Year of Action," with a variety of events throughout the year. 

The Tokyo N4G 2021 focuses on 5 thematic areas, namely, (1) Health: Making nutrition integral to Universal Health Coverage for sustainable development; (2) Food: Building food systems that promote safe, healthy diets and nutrition, ensure livelihoods of producers, and are climate-smart; (3) Resilience: Addressing malnutrition effectively in fragile and conflict affected contexts; (4) Promoting data-driven accountability; and (5) Securing new investment and driving innovation in nutrition financing.

How can we transform our food system to ensure that everyone has a nutritious and sustainable diet? A group of N4G stakeholders described the global synergistic epidemic, or the ‘syndemic’ of overnutrition, undernutrition and climate change as the greatest challenge for human and planetary health in the 21st century. In addition, this has been compounded by the new coronavirus pandemic with unprecedented challenges to food and nutrition security. There is a need for nutritional policies that go beyond public health and focus on planetary health as well. The policy, private sector, and nutrition research community may have different perspectives, but collaborative, multi-sector approaches are necessary in changing the global food systems.

References

Nature Research. Building better food systems for nutrition and health. https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-020-00505-1 accessed on Jan 5, 2021.

MOFA. Postponement of the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit 2020 https://www.mofa.go.jp/ic/ghp/page25e_000331.html accessed on Jan 5, 2021.

Contributor: SHIRATORI Sakiko (Research Strategy Office)