7000000205-Technical Assistance and advice to the European Commission (DG INTPA and EU Delegations)

By 2030, 582 million may remain chronically undernourished, and healthy diets could remain unaffordable for 2.8 billion people. Partner countries need strategic investments in food systems and early human capital development to meet rising environmental, social, and nutritional challenges. Tight resources threaten funding for nutrition-specific interventions; expected donor cuts risk reversing progress.

A renewed strategic focus and coordination (Team Europe+) are essential. Council Conclusions on Food Security and Nutrition (Dec 2024) called for Global Gateway investments in value chains and corridors under a Team Europe approach. The EU"s 360-degree Global Gateway offers additional opportunities for nutrition by creating an enabling environment for sustainable and quality investments.

The Multi-Donor Action "Capacity for Nutrition 2.0" (C4N 2.0) is jointly co-financed by the European Union (EU) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH as part of the BMZ Global Programme (GP) "Knowledge and Policy Coherence for Nutrition" (KPCN). C4N 2.0 contributes to the following overall objective: "To contribute to the transition to inclusive, climate-neutral, resilient and sustainable agri-aquatic food systems". The specific objective of C4N 2.0 is "to support the nutrition and gender sensitive transformation of agri-food systems".

Good nutrition is a human rights marker and a driver of health, resilience, economic development and stability. Multiple crises and competing budgets jeopardize shifts toward efforts to transform agri-food systems to support healthy and sustainable diets. Effective nutrition requires multisectoral approaches and sustained investments across sectors.

Strengthened nutrition governance will be essential for advancing nutrition integration, including a reinforced Team Europe approach and enhanced multistakeholder engagement and coordination. Ensuring sustainable, resilient, and healthy diets is critical to both improve nutrition and mitigate climate change. Climate change exacerbates all forms of malnutrition via reduced yields, damaged infrastructure and heightened disease susceptibility, while today"s food systems significantly drive climate change and environmental degradation.

Healthy diets are key to poverty reduction and climate adaptation/mitigation. Achieving SDG 2 within planetary boundaries requires jointly addressing the food-nutrition security, climate and gender interlinkages. Implementation challenges include low political prioritization, capacity and investment gaps, and inadequate frameworks.

C4N 2.0 addresses the nutrition-climate-gender nexus to drive food systems transformation for healthy, sustainable diets. Building on N4G momentum and the EUR6.5bn Team Europe pledge, C4N 2.0 promotes nutrition integration in global, regional and national agendas, supporting climate-smart, gender-transformative policies and interventions, including via Global Gateway blended finance investments. It strengthens the alliance between the European Commission and Germany, extending to EU member states and like-minded countries (Team Europe+) for greater coherence and efficiency in line with Global Gateway.

This will be achieved through 4 mutually reinforcing outputs: Output 1: Positioning - Coherent and evidence-based positions on the Nutrition-climate-gender nexus are developed to promote healthy and sustainable diets in a Team Europe+ approach. Output 2: Advisory -Increased technical capacities of INTPA, EUDs and BMZ to scale up effective, equitable, sustainable, and resilient nutrition policy responses and outreach at global, regional, and national levels. Output 3: Country support - Improved technical and institutional capacities to implement evidence-based recommendations for integrated climate- and gender-sensitive nutrition action in (SUN) partner countries.

Output 4: Stakeholder Engagement - Nutrition integration is supported through civil society organisations, think tanks and academia. These outputs will be implemented through tailored technical assistance (TA), capacity development (CD), grant mechanisms, and multilevel coordination with EU and BMZ partners. The Action builds on the achievements of the first C4N phase and leverages established networks in Senegal, Kenya, and Thailand as regional hubs.

C4N 2.0 has a duration of 41 months (1 April 2026 to 31 August 2029).