EMERGING FINANCING MECHANISMS: WHERE IS THE VALUE FOR NUTRITION?

In recent years, three new financing mechanisms with a nutrition focus have been launched: the Global Financing Facility (GFF), Power of Nutrition and UNITLIFE (with the GFF being the most advanced mechanism).

To scale up nutrition interventions, it is critically important to increase nutrition funding, and the GFF is a great opportunity to this end.

Overall, we have seen good signs that the GFF is indeed contributing to nutrition.  However, a few caveats:

• A number of the GFF’s initial investments are being made in countries that are often referred to as “donor darlings,” such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and Vietnam
• We are not talking about “game changing” levels of funding for nutrition.
• Towards that end, we think governments from the South, donors, the World Bank, and civil society have a really important role in helping to make the GFF’s support for nutrition a success, on numerous fronts.

This report aims to assess how the emerging innovative financing mechanisms (and more specifically the GFF) can help fill the nutrition-financing gap. It presents:

1. A high-level overview of the financing landscape for nutrition: the different domestic and external sources of nutrition financing, including new developments and trends in nutrition financing.
2. An analysis of early experiences with the GFF which reviews the early investments made by the Global Financing Facility (the GFF), to understand better how it is supporting nutrition efforts in countries
3. A discussion of opportunities for civil society (at both national and international levels) to support the GFF, as well as new nutrition financing mechanisms more broadly.
4. Specific recommendations to the World Bank task team leaders (at international, regional and national levels), the Investor Group, governments of high burden countries as well as donors.