The SDGs are inter-linked and synergistic; that is, they represent neither a sequential order of proposed actions, nor a ranking of urgency, they are mutually supportive and of equal priority.
There are strong synergies between health and nutrition that are well-documented; good health is not possible without good nutrition. Being malnourished in any form carries significant risks to health. Resolving all forms of undernutrition and obesity would dramatically reduce the social burden of sickness and premature death, and the economic burdens of lost productivity and contribute to improving healthy lives and wellbeing for all (SDG3).
On the other hand, the eradication of hunger and food insecurity (SDG2) would help nutrition because it would have to involve ensuring year-round access to adequate, safe, diverse and nutrient-rich food for all. It is argued that actions to address agricultural productivity and improvements throughout the food and agriculture value chain can represent critical opportunities for addressing malnutrition.
The session will discuss the potential of ICT as a cross-cutting enabler to address the multifaceted nature of nutrition by enhancing agricultural systems, improving access to healthy diets, improving knowledge for food choices, increasing resilience of food systems to economic, climatic and human-made shocks, and remediating food-borne threats to consumers.
The session will specifically highlight how ICT can federate actions by addressing multiple interlinked goals at the same time maximizing and accelerating therefore their impact by overcoming traditional siloes that favored the duplication of efforts and failed to adopt a holistic approach to address development challenges.