Germany joins global food security initiative

On the 27^th and 28^th March, at the Nutrition for Growth Summit (N4G), which was organised by France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs in the country’s capital of Paris, the international community made ambitious commitments to tackle the challenge of malnutrition in all its forms. Close to 28 billion USD in nutrition funding to reach Sustainable Development Goals was announced, attesting to the exceptional degree of mobilisation and renewed commitment to multilateralism.

In the context of the conference, Germany joined the “Global Compact on Nutrition Integration”, which aims to establish food security as a cross-cutting topic and link various thematic fields via strategic planning in a manner enabling multiple benefits, as for example in the case of school meal programmes promoting both education and healthy diets.

According to a press release by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), joining this initiative underscores Germany’s continuing international engagement regarding a stronger integration of food in various sectors, such as agriculture, health or social security. The BMZ’s press release states that food programmes are especially effective when they are combined with other approaches. For example, it claims, in addition to combating hunger, this simultaneously contributes to achieving other goals such as economic growth, poverty alleviation and climate resilience.

The BMZ states that one of Germany’s development policy goals is to boost the self-help potential of partner countries at local level in communities. “Those who grow their own food can cope better with crises and shocks,” it argues. “And people with sufficient food have the power and the perspective to make positive contributions to society.”

It is precisely this notion which has continued to motivate Germany to strengthen school meal programmes in cooperation with international partner organisations such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) or the World Food Programme (WFP). Throughout the world, these programmes are important social security nets for children and their families which simultaneously promote access to healthy food and school education. Especially when access to sufficient and nutritious food is a question of money, children can be regularly cared for, the BMZ stresses.

As the BMZ further explains, in addition to their role concerning social security, the programmes provide an incentive to attend school and promote local agriculture and the local food industry. Germany is campaigning in particular for food for school meals being produced locally and sustainably.

For example, together with the WFP, Germany is supporting school meal programmes in Sierra Leone und Laos in which around 10,000 smallholders provide the schools with local food such as sweet potatoes, vegetables, pulses and fruit, thus enabling 60,000 schoolchildren to have a healthy meal at school. School meal programmes can crucially contribute to a sustainable transformation of agricultural and food systems by strengthening local smallholder agriculture, promoting cultivation methods adapted to climates, generating income and creating prospects for the future, the BMZ stresses.

N4G is a series of international food security summits which takes place every four years. N4G 2025 was organised by France. A total of 127 delegations, including the governments of 106 countries, in addition to numerous international organisations, civil society organisations, development banks, philanthropic organisations, research institutions and businesses, got together to help put an end to the scourge of malnutrition and under-nutrition, which hinders countries’ economic and social development and traps communities in an intergenerational cycle of poverty.
(BMZ/wi)

More information:

Link to N4G Summit 2025 in Paris

Link to BMZ Website: Eradicating hunger – ensuring food security