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- Learn more about the gender and nutrition agenda in 2025
- Join us in marking this International Women's Day 2025
- Download and share our social media assets
- Familiarize yourself with the gender and nutrition key messages
2025 is a critical year for engagement on gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment.
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action - the Commission on the Status of Women reaffirms that gender equality, rights and the empowerment of all women and girls is an essential prerequisite for achieving all of the Sustainable Development Goals and targets.
The Scaling Up Nutrition Movement recognizes that over 1 billion women and adolescent girls suffer from undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and anemia.
The world is not on track to meet the WHA targets for Nutrition under SDG3 and we will not succeed in scaling up nutrition if we do not address the drivers and impact of gender-based discrimination that perpetuate cycles of poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition.
The sociology and politics of health, food production and consumption, insecurity and conflict and climate change, dictates who eats last and least, who has access to essential services, who bears the burden of unpaid care at home and in community, who has access to and control over productive resources, who is most impacted by violence, displacement and migration and who is most impacted by drought and extreme weather, economic losses in production, diminishing nutrient content, shifts in disease patterns and climate migration.
Similarly if we do not adequately address and prevent malnutrition - which lowers learning potential, wages and life opportunities for adolescent girls and women, weakens their immunity to infections, and increases their risk of life-threatening complications during pregnancy and childbirth - we cannot achieve gender equality, rights and empowerment (source: UNICEF).
The Paris Nutrition for Growth Summit March 2025 offers a critical opportunity to spotlight women’s and girls’ and marginalized people’s need of nutrition by including, for the first time since the summit’s inception, a dedicated thematic area on nutrition and gender equality.
- Targeted — Directly addressing the specific nutritional needs of women and girls at different stages of their life, ensuring support is personalized and effective.
- Inclusive — Engaging women and girls, especially those from marginalized or underserved communities, in the decision-making process, making sure the programs are tuned to their needs and experiences.
- Transformative — Working to break down the systemic and structural barriers and increasing women and girls’ agency, access and control over social and economic resources that influence nutrition outcomes for women and girls.
2025 at a glance:
📅 March
- CSW / Beijing+30 - Nutrition For ALL Women and Girls - Nutrition is a Right, Nutrition is a driver and outcome of Equality and Empowerment
- Paris Nutrition For Growth Summit
📅 May
- WHA - accelerating action to address women and girls nutrition through the extension of the WHA Nutrition Targets and introduction of Operational Targets
📅 July
- Review of SDG 5 at the UN High Level Political Form
- Tracking progress and strengthening accountability on the UNFSS+2 Call to Action to prioritize inclusion of women, young people and Indigenous Peoples in food systems transformation at UNFSS+4
📅 September
- UN General Assembly
📅November
- Addressing the climate-gender-nutrition nexus at COP30 - elevating nutrition in the extension of the Enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender and the new gender action plan for 2025
- Empowering the Change - gender and nutrition at the SUN Global Gathering
International Women's Day 2025
This International Women’s Day will be marked around the world on 8 March 2025 under the theme "For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment".
The SUN Movement calls on countries, partners and stakeholders across the SUN Movement to elevate and integrate Gender and Nutrition action across Health, Social Protection, Food Systems, Climate to accelerate the realization of gender equality, rights and the empowerment of all women and girls.
Social media
This International Women's Day and beyond, amplify the messaging of our Gender and Nutrition toolkit using the suggested posts here below and our social media graphics.
Let’s close the #GenderNutritionGap together, we believe investing in nutrition, invests in women, follow our campaign through our channels here.
Suggested posts:
The world is off track to meet global #nutrition targets🆘. Gender discrimination keeps women & girls in cycles of poverty & malnutrition. #N4GParis is a key opportunity to prioritize nutrition & gender equality. This #IWD, act #ForAllWomenAndGirls & #PowerTheChange ♀️.
#DYK Applying a gender lens to #nutrition can deliver a double dividend: accelerating the eradication of malnutrition while advancing gender equity! Why choose 1 when you can have both? Let’s start this #InternationalWomensDay 👉🏾https://new.express.adobe.com/webpage/6fKu28xRLOoNc?
Over 1 billion women & girls face undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies & anemia, which impacts their health, education & economic opportunities. The #N4GParis Summit offers a critical opportunity to prioritize nutrition & gender equality. To make lasting change, stakeholders and countries must commit to inclusive, targeted & effective actions. This #InternationalWomensDay ♀️, let’s act #ForAllWomenAndGirls & #PowerTheChange for better nutrition and equality. Read these recommendations for the development of strong gender-nutrition commitments: https://scalingupnutrition.org/resource-library/briefs-fact-sheets/recommendations-developing-commitments-nutrition-and-gender
For every $1 invested in fighting anaemia in #women, a country can get up to $12 in return! How? By investing in #nutrition interventions like: 📌Iron & folic acid supplementation 📌Food fortification This #InternationalWomensDay, join us to #PowerTheChange!
As #nutrition gatekeepers, #women play a vital role in shaping health, not just for themselves but for entire communities. #DYK that investing just $1 in reducing anaemia in women can yield up to $12? 🔄 💸 When we choose to #InvestinWomen's #nutrition, we not only enhance their well-being but also unlock economic benefits. #IWD2025!
Tag us on your posts:
- @SUN_Movement
- @AfshanKhan_
- @UN_Nutrition
- @SUNCSN
- @SUNBizNet
- @womensday
- @UN_Women
Use these hashtags:
- #InternationalWomensDay
- #IWD2025
- #ForAllWomenAndGirls
- #PowerTheChange
Key messages
Health:
⚕️The health of families and economies relies on the health of women and girls
⚕️Of the 820 million people chronically malnourished in the world, roughly 60 percent are women and girls
⚕️Girls who are undernourished are more likely to leave school early, be married and have children at a young age and have lower earning potential later in life - perpetuating intergenerational cycles of poverty and malnutrition
⚕️3 in 10 women and girls ages 15-49 worldwide are anemic - resulting in a global economic cost of $113B per year
⚕️Stunting among children under 5 results in an estimated US $548 billion economic cost annually - yet roughly 50% of stunted children become stunted in utero through the first six months after birth while dependent on their mother for nutrition
Food systems transformation:
🚜Women and girls bear the brunt of gender inequities in fractured food systems - as consumers, as caregivers and those responsible for food preparation in their households and as producers
🚜In 2021 126 million more women experienced food insecurity than men
🚜Nearly half (48%) of rural agricultural employees in low income countries are women [37% worldwide] - yet women engaged in agrifood systems tend to work in more dangerous and vulnerable jobs and often at lower levels of the value chain.
🚜Creating food environments that are healthy, affordable and sustainable requires active inclusion of women, girls and young people as actors and decision makers in food systems transformation
Climate:
🌡️Climate change risks exacerbating inequalities in nutrition, food security and gender equality: negatively impacting food systems, shifting disease burden and increasing climate induced migration. The combined impact of diminishing resources and limited decision-making power over allocation of increasingly scarce resources mean this crisis will deepen the systemic inequality that holds women and girls back from realizing their right to good nutrition.
🌡️By mid-century, under a worst-case climate-scenario, 236 million more women and girls will be food insecure compared to 131 million more men and boys.
🌡️When extreme weather events occur, female-headed households experience significant income losses relative to male headed households: roughly 8% loss due to heat stress, and 3% due to floods, every year
🌡️Climate action must be nutrition sensitive as well as gender responsive and transformative - recognizing and harnessing the role of women in food systems, empowering them to achieve better climate and nutrition outcomes, and enhancing their resilience to climate-related challenges
The Way Forward:
⏭️ Integration is Key - evidence based solutions must translate into accelerated gender responsive and transformative nutrition action across health systems, food systems, social protection, climate resilience and humanitarian response
⏭️ The socio-economic benefits of investing in women’s and girls’ nutrition are far reaching. For example:
- Supporting women’s choice to breastfeed can prevent 820 000 child deaths per year and yearly income losses of US$507 billion
- For every US$ 1 invested in interventions aimed at reducing anaemia in women and girls there is a US$12 return
- Eliminating adolescent anaemia, as well as addressing undernutrition and the growing challenges of obesity and overweight among adolescents can increase economic productivity by up to 17%
- Closing gender gaps in farm productivity and pay in agrifood-system would increase global gross domestic product by nearly 1 trillion USD and reduce global food insecurity by about 2 percentage points (roughly 45 million people)
The carbon footprint from commercial milk formulas is estimated at 11–14 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram sold. Investments in breastfeeding need to be recognized as a carbon offset in global strategies for sustainable food, health, and economic systems