Task Force 6: Accelerating SDGs: Exploring New Pathways to the 2030 Agenda The polycrisis of the climate emergency, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine have reversed many countries gains in tackling food insecurity and malnutrition. In Brazil and India, access to a healthy diet made significant progress between the 2000s and the 2010s, with various social protection programmes central to achieving this. During the recent crises, both countries used social protection measures to maintain food security. The achievements of and challenges faced by both countries offer valuable lessons for other G20 countries. Key recommendations arising from these lessons include strengthening existing programmes and their foundation through legislation, unified registries, and minimum budget allocations, as well as tackling both food demand and supply. [a] 1. The Challenge The G20 countries currently face several challenges towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2 in relation to nutrition and food security. The threat to food security was on the rise even before the COVID-19 pandemic due to climate change-induced droughts, unseasonal rains, and heightened temperatures. The pandemic then reversed several gains and amplified the deterioration of food security, further diminishing consumers ability to purchase food and disrupting value chains. [1] , [2] Globally, an estimated 828 million people (10.5 percent of the world population) faced hunger in 2021, an increase of almost 210 million since 2019. [3] As the world recovered from the socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic, a new food security threat emerged as the war in Ukraine reduced food imports from Ukraine and Russia and increased prices. Brazil and India, two of the most populous G20 countries, have been significantly affected by this polycrisis. Despite their reduction in food insecurity in the 2000s and early 2010s through increased production, the prevalence of undernourishment began to rise again in the second half of the 2010s. Brazil trend changed course and began increasing in 2018-2020 (2.6 percent), while India did so a year earlier (13.3 percent) (see Figure 1). Figure 1: Prevalence of undernourishment in Brazil and India (%) (2000-2021) Source: FAOSTAT 2023 [4] Brazilians were already increasingly struggling to purchase food in 2019, prior to the pandemic (see Figure 2). In India (see Figure 3), this process seemed to have been ignited by the pandemic with difficulties accelerating in 2020. ‹ Figure 2: Health diet affordability Brazil (2017-2020) Figure 3 : Health diet affordability India (2017-2020) Source: FAO et al. 2022 [5] Source: FAO et al. 2022 [6] Addressing malnutrition among women and children Addressing malnutrition requires a special focus on women and children. The first 1,000 days of a child life are a crucial period for brain development [7] and inadequate access to nutrition in pregnant women and children has dire consequences that persist into adulthood. [8] Further, causes of undernutrition such as access to food, care, water, sanitation, and health services [9] are determined by the status of women, and the related social, economic, and political situation, and structures that they are situated within. Social protection measures that directly address malnutrition, and indirect measures that have a bearing on household income and food security are thus crucial. Cash- and in-kind transfers and labour market policies, as well as cash plus interventions can support families in overcoming monetary and non-income barriers to meeting their nutritional needs. [10] , [11] , [12]
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