Devex Dish: A dose of hope as Nutrition for Growth exceeds expectations
10 April 2025The Nutrition for Growth in Paris exceeds expectations, with more than $27 billion raised; the Trump administration outlines plans for food programs as USAID is dismantled; and CGIAR’s first Science Week takes place next week.
In an era when so much in the foreign aid world feels grim, last week’s Nutrition for Growth summit in Paris was a much-needed dose of good news. One NGO leader told Tania he feels “rejuvenated by hope,” a sentiment echoed by many attendees.
It was the first major global pledging conference since the Trump administration announced in January that it would cut the majority of U.S. humanitarian and development aid. Few people thought the summit’s financial commitments would reach, let alone surpass, the previous N4G in Tokyo in 2021.
And yet that’s exactly what happened: Organizers and nutrition advocates mobilized $27.55 billion, without financial commitments from the United States or the United Kingdom. The U.S. had committed $11 billion in 2021, or almost half of what was raised at that event.
“The summit is a rallying cry to the troops and a call to go the extra mile for nutrition, a call that many heeded in Paris,” Lawrence Haddad, executive director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, told Tania afterward. Or as France’s Special Envoy for Nutrition Brieuc Pont put it: “I’ve always said it’s not a beauty contest. But it feels good to feel beautiful.”