Photo Credit: UNICEF
The world has made significant progress in reducing child mortality and malnutrition over the past two decades. But those gains are increasingly at risk as conflict, climate shocks, economic crises and shrinking development aid put pressure on nutrition programmes, according to a new UNICEF report.
The Child Nutrition Fund’s 2025 Annual Report says child mortality has declined by more than 40% over the past two decades, while the number of children affected by stunting has fallen by more than a quarter. But the report warns that the progress remains fragile.
Around 150 million children under 5 were living with stunted growth and development, while 43 million were suffering from wasting, according to the report. It also says severe child food poverty affects one in four children under 5 and that nearly one in three women of childbearing age is affected by anaemia.
The pressure is growing at a time when international development financing is contracting. Official development assistance from members and associates of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee fell by 23.1% in 2025 to $174.3 billion, the largest annual decline on record, the report says.
“Child nutrition is under pressure from conflict, climate shocks and economic crises,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s executive director, said in the report. She added that these forces were making it harder for children to access nutritious food and essential services needed to grow and develop.
Russell said the pressures were arriving as development aid was declining and governments faced tighter fiscal space.
“We need bold and decisive action to tackle these challenges,” she said, describing the Child Nutrition Fund as one tool for driving that response.
The fund, established as a UNICEF-led financing mechanism for countries with high nutrition needs, works with governments and partners to expand nutrition programmes and strengthen systems.
By December 2025, 45 of the 63 countries eligible for CNF support were drawing on the fund, the report says. It had secured $939 million toward a $2 billion target for 2030, with more than half of the money received and already being deployed. The fund uses several approaches, including directing grants toward countries with the greatest needs, matching domestic government investments and developing innovative financing mechanisms.
The report says its matching model is designed to encourage governments to increase their own investment in nutrition while using external financing to expand the reach of programmes and essential supplies.
In 2025, the CNF established multi-year partnerships with Bangladesh, Benin, Indonesia, Laos and the Philippines. The fund committed $96.8 million over five years across those partnerships, alongside $673.1 million in planned government investments financed through domestic resources and loans from international financial institutions.
The approach is intended to move countries toward stronger national systems rather than continued dependence on external funding.
“The Child Nutrition Fund helps countries navigate these pressures by supporting the supply of essential nutrition commodities, aligning donors to national priorities and matching domestic funding,” Rahul Rawat, deputy director for maternal, newborn and child health at the Gates Foundation, said in the report.
“Every dollar invested in the Child Nutrition Fund works harder, helping more women and children not just survive, but thrive,” Rawat said.
The 2025 figures show both the scale of the response and the distance still to go. An estimated 48.4 million pregnant women received interventions to prevent anaemia, including multiple micronutrient supplements and iron and folic acid. Nearly 63.6 million caregivers received counselling and support to promote breastfeeding and improve infant and young child feeding practices.
More than 16.7 million children aged 6 to 23 months received multiple micronutrient powders or small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements to improve diet quality and prevent nutrient deficiencies. Almost 205.4 million children received vitamin A supplementation or deworming prophylaxis, while about 7.4 million children with wasting were admitted for treatment.
The CNF says its own supported programmes reached 8.1 million women with multiple micronutrient supplements and iron and folic acid, 3.7 million caregivers with breastfeeding counselling, 579,000 children through complementary feeding interventions, 6.1 million children through vitamin A supplementation and/or deworming, and 1 million children with treatment for wasting.
The report cautions, however, that the results cannot be attributed solely to CNF funding because they reflect programmes implemented with governments and other partners. The financing challenge is particularly significant for countries facing conflict and other emergencies, where governments may have limited fiscal space to finance nutrition programmes.
In Burkina Faso, for example, the CNF matched $3.9 million in government financing for small-quantity lipid-based nutrient supplements, helping procure enough supplies to reach more than 85,000 children.
The report says more than 53,000 cartons of the supplements were procured in 2025, supporting expansion into emergency and high-security-challenge regions. In the Philippines, a $13.2 million CNF investment was combined with $79 million from the government and partners to strengthen maternal and child nutrition services during the first 1,000 days of life.
More than 62,000 pregnant women received multiple micronutrient supplements in 2025, while 1.5 million children received two annual doses of vitamin A supplementation and nearly 296,000 children aged 6 to 23 months received micronutrient powders.
The fund’s broader ambition is to reach 320 million women and children annually by 2030, including 70 million women with services to prevent undernutrition, 230 million children with preventive services and 20 million children with treatment for life-threatening forms of undernutrition. But the report makes clear that reaching those targets will require continued financing and stronger national systems.
“The CNF is demonstrating how meaningful collaboration can drive real change for children at scale,” said Anna Hakobyan, chief impact officer and executive director of nutrition at the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation.
She said partnerships between donors, governments, civil society and UN agencies were helping country-led plans expand access to nutrition services for vulnerable women and children. The report ultimately frames nutrition financing as a question of sustainability as much as immediate assistance.
Russell said governments were building stronger national systems and nutrition programmes capable of continuing to deliver for women and children into the future.
“Now, more than ever, we must match the scale of the crisis with the degree of our ambition and investment,” she said.
“As the CNF expands its reach, we urge governments, as well as our resource partners from the private and public sector, to join this global movement.”
The report says the challenge ahead is to protect the gains already made while expanding access to proven interventions in countries where children and women face the greatest nutritional risks.
