The UN’s World Social Report 2025 has painted a damning picture – rising poverty, widening inequality and escalating climate shocks that are undoing decades of social progress. More than 3.8 billion people still lack basic social support systems.
Social protection policies and programmes are particularly sparse in low-income countries, where the need is greatest. Those left out, often women and children, are likely to also be the most nutritionally vulnerable.
As leaders gather in Doha this week for the Second World Summit for Social Development, one question should frame the discussion: “How can social protection systems not only protect, but empower people to break the cycle of poverty and malnutrition, across every stage of life?”
Nutrition and social protection are mutually reinforcing. When people have access to nutritious food, health and productivity improve. When these systems fail, inequality deepens.
Well designed and resourced, social protection systems can facilitate access to complementary support and services to address direct, underlying and root causes of malnutrition, especially during the crucial first 1,000 days of a child’s life.
Social protection can be used to strengthen safety nets, for example with the provision of food or cash transfers that enable vulnerable populations to access a nutritious diet. Nutrition-sensitive cash transfers help reduce reliance on cheap, unhealthy foods and establish healthy habits early in life.
Most of the 67 countries of the Sun Movement (79 per cent) have highlighted the integration of nutrition across sectors as a way to maximise efficiency and impact. However, in many countries policies and budgets are siloed, even when people’s lives are not. While nutrition is often integrated into health systems in Sun countries, less than half consistently integrate it into social protection, highlighting a significant missed opportunity.
One good example of a country that is successfully bringing nutrition and social protection together is The Gambia where a “cash plus care” model led by the National Nutrition Agency combines cash transfers with nutrition and health education.
Despite being newly launched, integration across social welfare, education and health has already had a measurable impact – 98 per cent of participating households now afford more varied and nutritious meals; while 54 per cent of families have started small businesses, 58 per cent of them led by women. By linking income support with knowledge and empowerment, the model transforms temporary relief into long-term resilience, helping women feed their families, educate their children and build independent futures.
School feeding programmes are also powerful social investments – they reduce the financial burden on low-income families and keep children in school. They can also create co-benefits across local economies. In Rwanda, a school meals programme sources food from local farmers, improving educational outcomes, while also boosting the farmers’ incomes. Every healthy meal served in these schools is a down payment on a child’s future, and in this project the investments are playing double duty for the local community and economy.
However even the best-designed systems can be thrown off course. Across low and middle-income countries, recurring shocks – conflict, inflation, extreme weather and displacement – disrupt access to food, health and livelihoods. These crises affect people at every stage of life.
When crises hit, social protection that can quickly respond makes the difference between recovery and setback. That is why it is vital to weave nutrition goals into safety nets and emergency responses.
For example, cash transfers combined with nutrition and health services can expand during crises to help families keep access to healthy food and essential care. Connecting these systems to climate adaptation plans also strengthens resilience and reduces the need for constant emergency aid.
But while the need is universal, the means are not. Low-income and fragile countries face constraints such as limited fiscal headroom, poor access to financing and insufficient technical capacity to design and manage adaptive systems.
Bringing nutrition into broader systems like social protection can unlock more diverse and sustainable financing by tapping into existing national and global funding streams. With nutrition still receiving less than 1 per cent of total Official Development Assistance, integration is not just smart – it’s essential. The Sun Movement supports countries to strengthen this integration and to secure the financing needed to make nutrition gains sustainable over time.
If governments, donors and development banks make nutrition integration the norm we can transform social protection into social empowerment, building resilient societies that thrive through every challenge. Social progress begins with nourishment. It’s time to make nutrition everyone’s business.
