These principles of engagement – captured in this report by GAIN, the United States Council for International Business, and Wilton Park - serve as a call to action to create impactful alliances. Following an initial meeting meeting between business and government in 2017 at Wilton Park - No More Missed Opportunities: Advancing Public-private Partnerships to Achieve the global Nutrition Goals – participants agreed on a draft set of guiding principles, with the aim of moving towards a consensus on the why, what, when, how and who of public-private engagements to improve nutrition.
In addition to the report and the principles, a second meeting - Together for Nutrition: applying principles for public-private engagement – was held in Rome in November 2018. A report from the second meeting can be found here, and the principles of engagement are summarised below:
- Alignment: While governments are ultimately responsible establishing the goals and the priorities for action to improve nutrition, and to do this on the basis of the best available scientific evidence, it is important that all stakeholders involved in shaping the food system should contribute to dialogue that shapes policy decisions.
- Prioritisation: Governments and businesses should prioritise actions that advance the SDG Targets 2 and 3.4, and WHA Targets 2, 3, 4 and 5.
- Impact: Governments and businesses should act based on unbiased and transparent assessments of peer-reviewed scientific evidence, and lack of evidence should not be an excuse for inaction as long the basis for action is transparent.
- Data: Governments and businesses will generate and share data relevant to the global nutrition goals and will cooperate on data collection. This data should be screened for quality by the scientific community, published in peer-reviewed journals and made publicly available.
- Innovation: Governments and businesses will increase their efforts to invest in new technologies that increase availability and affordability of nutritious safe foods, thereby empowering consumers, businesses and governments to make healthy food choices.
- Accountability: Governments and businesses should routinely measure the impact of their individual and collective efforts against the relevant SDG targets and make results available in easy to understand formats. Governments and businesses will commit to greater accountability and transparency in actions affecting the nutritional status of all of their stakeholders (e.g. citizens, consumers, employees etc.) and cooperate with international accountability efforts. This increased accountability will lead to targeted investments in successful interventions.
