23 September 2019
UN HQ, New York (USA)
Climate change is the defining issue of our time and now is the defining moment to do something about it. There is still time to tackle climate change, but it will require an unprecedented effort from all sectors of society.
To boost ambition and accelerate actions to implement the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will host the 2019 Climate Summit on 23 September to meet the climate challenge. The Summit will showcase a leap in collective national political ambition and it will demonstrate massive movements in the real economy in support of the agenda. Together, these developments will send strong market and political signals and inject momentum in the “race to the top” among countries, companies, cities and civil society that is needed to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Good nutrition serves as a catalyst for advancement in health, education, employment, empowerment, and the productive capacity of women and men. It can lay the foundation for peaceful, secure, and stable societies. However, several forms of malnutrition (e.g. stunting, wasting, anemia, and obesity) can currently be found in the same country, the same community, the same household, and even the same person—a testament to the complexity of the problem.
For these reasons and more, CARE pledges its support to the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition.
As governments and stakeholders increasingly commit to the Nutrition Decade, and new action networks are formed, CARE will seek pathways for collaboration to support common goals. CARE will also continue to advocate for just and sustainable food and water systems to provide healthy and nutritious diets, engaging governments, the private sector, international bodies, and partners, including in non-traditional spaces. The most recent example of this was CARE’s work alongside CCAFS to raise the ambition in climate action related to food systems for improved nutrition at the UNFCCC (Bonn, June 2019).
With only 5 years left to achieve the World Health Assembly targets to improve maternal, infant, and young child nutrition, and 10 years to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, this mid-way point of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition reminds us that now is the moment to do more.
