Nutrition

Our goal
To ensure that all women and children have the nutrition they need to live a healthy and productive life.
A mother in Bangladesh feeding her child solid food to complement breastfeeding.
Mothers and babies attending a nutrition session in the village of Porath in Pakistan. Photo © Alive & Thrive/AV Com

At a glance

  • Poor nutrition contributes to nearly half of all child deaths under age 5 and impairs the physical and mental development of millions of children.
  • More than 1 billion women and children do not have access to the nutrition and healthy diets they need to survive and thrive.
  • We work to broaden the use of proven interventions, ranging from breastfeeding to large-scale food fortification, and we support the development and testing of new solutions.
  • We integrate our work across teams at the foundation—including Nutrition; Agricultural Development; Maternal, Newborn & Child Health; and Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Discovery & Tools—to broaden our collective learning and impact.

The latest updates on nutrition

Why smallholder farmers are investing in a new kind of tilapia
Video

Why smallholder farmers are investing in a new kind of tilapia

While smallholder farmers are facing an increasingly difficult climate, it’s crucial to have climate-resilient resources to improve nutrition and incomes. Learn how an improved tilapia is one example of climate-friendly food that can reduce malnutrition.
Bean varieties developed by National Agricultural Research Organization photographed in Uganda.
Article

Bill Gates on how feeding children properly can transform global health

The stomach influences every aspect of human health, says the philanthropist.
Bill Gates Chair, Board Member, Gates Foundation
James Mutinda, a farmer, teaches music to students using recycled items for instruments at Lulu Light School in Machakos County, Kenya, on September 19, 2023.
Article

Through music and nutrition, a farmer’s passions come alive

Organic farmer James Mutinda has found many ways to serve his community in Kenya, from music to beekeeping and beyond.
James Mutinda at his farm in Machakos County, Kenya. In the video above, James shares his ambitions stemming from his passion in sustainable farming.
Article

The prize-winning sweetpotato helping farmers respond to climate change

The remarkable sweetpotato is one of many supercharged crops that can grow despite a changing climate. Farmers are adapting to climate change with it.
Dr. Joyce Maru Director, Global Sweetpotato Agri-food Systems Program, International Potato Center
Our strategy

Our strategy

We invest in nutrition to reduce preventable deaths and improve maternal and child health, with a particular focus on the 1,000-day window of opportunity from the onset of pregnancy to the child’s second birthday. Nutrition is the key to ensuring that individuals not only survive, but that they can truly thrive with optimal physical growth and cognitive development. Key program areas include large-scale food fortification; nutritious food systems; maternal, infant, and young child nutrition; and upstream research and innovation to identify new approaches and game-changing interventions.

Across our areas of focus, we work closely with governments, the United Nations, bilateral agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. Internally, we collaborate across foundation teams— including Nutrition; Agricultural Development; Maternal, Newborn & Child Health; and Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Discovery & Tools—to broaden our collective learning and impact.

A sweet potato variety that is rich in vitamin A is now widely available in eastern and southern Africa.
A sweet potato variety that is rich in vitamin A is now widely available in eastern and southern Africa.
Areas of focus

Areas of focus

Vitamins and minerals are critical to improving the immune systems, and cognition, and to promoting optimal growth and development.

Investments in the agricultural sector can improve nutrition outcomes when they are designed from the outset with these objectives, but the current food system is not delivering good nutrition for all.

Good nutrition fuels the lives of women and children, empowering them to grow, learn, and thrive.

Our upstream nutrition research and innovation work focuses on addressing nutritional vulnerability from the pre-pregnancy through post-partum periods and during the earliest stages of a child’s life.

Despite poor nutrition being the underlying cause of nearly half of all child deaths, less than 1 percent of global foreign aid is currently directed toward nutrition.

Why focus on nutrition?

Why focus on nutrition?

Each year, millions of children die and many more suffer from physical and mental impairments due to poor nutrition during the critical 1,000-day period from the onset of their mother’s pregnancy to their second birthday. Many children who live in poverty simply don’t get enough food—or the right kind of food—to support normal growth and development. Millions also suffer from illnesses such as diarrhea that sap the nutrients they consume.

Nutrition-related factors contribute to about 45 percent of child deaths under age 5. Among undernourished children who survive, more than one quarter suffer from stunted growth, which can impair neurological development and learning.

Nutrition has been a neglected area of global health and development, accounting for less than 1 percent of global foreign aid. This is largely due to its underlying and often hidden role in child illnesses and deaths.

The problem starts before pregnancy. Women and girls who are not healthy and well-nourished are more likely to have malnourished children. Because poor nutrition compromises the immune system, children who are malnourished are more vulnerable to life-threatening infectious diseases as well as physical and cognitive impairments. This limits their ability to learn in school and reduces their productivity as adults, creating a vicious cycle that prevents families, communities, and countries from lifting themselves out of poverty.

Most undernourished people live in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Ten countries in those regions account for two-thirds of global deaths attributable to poor nutrition. But even in those countries, most people who are undernourished do not show symptoms of extreme hunger or starvation. This “hidden hunger” is invisible to families, communities, and policymakers, which means that nutrition does not get enough attention and national nutrition programs are often underfunded.

Other challenges that contribute to malnutrition include inconsistent access to safe and affordable nutritious food, lack of awareness and understanding of healthy diets among those most at risk, low agricultural productivity (made worse by climate change), and poor sanitation and hygiene.

Over the past decade, research has dramatically expanded our understanding of how to improve nutrition for women and children. We now know, for example, that it is critical to reach children within the 1,000-day period and reach women and adolescent girls before, during, and after pregnancy.

Health worker Fatima Akilu (30), sits with mother Hussaina Abubakar (26) and her son for their one-on-one breastfeeding counseling at the Rigachikun PHC at Igabi LGA, in Kaduna, Nigeria on July 17 , 2019. The counseling often takes place with both mother and health worker seated face to face for easier communication and demonstration.
Health worker provides one-on-one breastfeeding counseling to a new mother.

A number of nutrition interventions have been shown to significantly improve child health and survival. They include exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of life, fortifying staple foods such as cereal flours and cooking oil, iodizing salt, breeding crops for improved nutritional content, providing micronutrient supplements (such as vitamin A and zinc) to children, and providing micronutrient supplements to mothers before and during pregnancy and while breastfeeding.

In places where these interventions have been broadly used, the results have been striking. In Brazil, efforts to improve and align nutrition and agriculture interventions reduced stunting by 80 percent within a generation. In Vietnam, rates of exclusive breastfeeding have tripled since 2009 as a result of focused efforts to support mothers. Vitamin A supplementation, which helps reduce blindness and childhood death, is now reaching more than 70 percent of children in high-risk countries.

These tools must be scaled up to reach all mothers and children. At the same time, new solutions are also needed. Evidence suggests that fully scaling up current interventions would address only about half of the burden of malnutrition because of its complex causes.

Strategy leadership

Strategy leadership

Meetu Kapur
Meetu Kapur
Director, Nutrition
Meetu Kapur leads the Nutrition portfolio within the Global Growth and Opportunity Division.
Carol Welch
Carol Welch
Director, Strategy, Planning, and Management, and Chief of Staff, Global Growth & Opportunity Division; Interim Director, Nutrition
Carol Welch leads strategic planning for the foundation’s Global Growth & Opportunity Division and serves as the division’s chief of staff. She is also interim director of the foundation’s Nutrition team.
Rasa Izadnegahdar
Rasa Izadnegahdar
Director, Maternal, Newborn, Child Nutrition & Health
Dr. Rasa Izadnegahdar leads the Maternal, Newborn, Child Nutrition and Health portfolio within the Gender Equality Division.
Our partners

Our partners

We do our work in collaboration with grantees and other partners, who join with us in taking risks, pushing for new solutions, and harnessing the transformative power of science and technology.
Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN)
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN)
Helen Keller International
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (Icddr.b)
Save the Children UK
Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN)
Related programs

Related programs

Agricultural Development
Agricultural Development

The Agricultural Development team supports efforts to help smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia improve the productivity of their crops and livestock, find new markets, and adapt to the challenges of climate change.

An Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) worker counsels a couple during a home visit in Uttar Pradesh, India.
Family Planning

The Family Planning team works with partners to expand access to high-quality contraceptive information, services, and supplies for women and girls in the world’s poorest countries.

Jyoti shares a moment with her 5-month old son, Harsh, in their home in Banthar village, Unnao District, Uttar Pradesh, India on July 16, 2019.
Maternal, Newborn, Child Nutrition & Health

The Maternal, Newborn, Child Nutrition & Health team addresses the major drivers of maternal and newborn mortality to ensure that women and newborns in low- and middle-income countries survive and remain healthy before, during, and after childbirth.