Nutrition and food security

The first Millennium Development Goal set by the UN in 2000 pledged to end extreme poverty and halve the proportion of people living in hunger by 2015 (taking 1990 figures as a baseline). But recent efforts to combat hunger have been hampered by a series of economic and climate-related crises that have seen the number of people suffering from under-nutrition rise to an estimated 1 billion – one in six of the world’s population.

The implications are enormous. The link between nutrition and the first MDG is clear – but nutrition also underpins the remaining seven goals. Adequate nutrition – particularly during a child’s first 1000 days between conception and their second birthday – is key to their physical and cognitive development and, therefore, to their ability to contribute to the prosperity of their country. 

OPM began life as the Food Studies Group at Oxford University. More than 30 years later, we retain our belief in a holistic approach to improving nutrition and in the principle that nutrition and food security is not just a human right, but also a powerful driver for economic and social development. Today, our work in this area includes building capacity for collecting and assessing accurate nutritional information, finding innovative, cost-effective ways to target people in need, and working with governments to convince them to make nutrition a priority.