Why children's participation at the Nutrition for Growth summit matters 

 Lisa O’Shea celebrates the French Government’s decision to actively invite young people to have their say at this year’s Nutrition for Growth summit.   

19 March 2025  

 A quote often attributed to Mahatma Ghandi is “The measure of a civilisation is how it treats its weakest members.” My experience, as an advocate and mother, has shown me that children want to have a say in how they are perceived, how they are treated and to be heard.  I’d even argue that respecting children's agency, their voices and needs is a barometer for the health of our societies.  

 This makes the upcoming Nutrition for Growth Summit in Paris a glimpse of sun in a stormy time for our planet’s most vulnerable inhabitants. As the world gathers in the French capital to consider how to address malnutrition, children and young people have been actively officially invited to participate in the summit, including young advocates like Salomé from Colombia, Sunischita from Nepal, and Williams from Sierra Leone.   

 Equipped with facts  

 These are young leaders who have been at the forefront of Nutrition Dialogues through ‘children’s workshops’ featuring children and young people in their communities. These were just some of more than 400 dialogues conducted in 54 countries, engaging more than 10,000 voices on the barriers and solutions to accessing proper nutrition. The insights garnered from these dialogues generally—and the children’s workshops in particular—have been invaluable.    

Not least because they have equipped the youngsters with first-hand data on how their peers are affected by poor access to enough of the right food, and how they would like to see malnutrition addressed. At the Nutrition for Growth Summit, Williams, Sunischita and Salomé, alongside French schoolchildren and other youth from around the globe, will ensure that the voices of children and youth are integral to the decision-making process.  

Preparing a call to action  

This will happen through their engagement in side-events; at the Village of Solutions exhibition space; during visits to French schools; and more. But the French government has also played a pivotal role in creating space for children at the Summit. It has invited young delegates to be significantly involved in the launch of the summit, as well as its concluding ceremony.   

Here, and at a media conference on Friday morning, the young people will be delivering their Call to Action, which has been drafted and edited by children and young people. Delegates and members of the Press will hear what young people need and want regarding better access to proper nutrition.   

 Facing the future   

 At World Vision, creating space for children and young people to shape societal values and influence decision-making is crucial to our development approach. Why? Why do we, for example, support children's clubs to ensure children are visible and heard at all levels of policy discussions and institutionalise children's participation, including in World Vision's own decision-making? Why are children central to our ENOUGH campaign, a global movement in over 70 countries aimed at ending child hunger and malnutrition?  

We want children involved in decisions about their futures because they are the ones most at risk of malnutrition. 45 million children are suffering from wasting—rapidly losing weight because of poor nutrition; 37 million are overweight or obese, also because of having to eat unhealthy food; and only 18% of children in low-income country have access to school meals—often their only meal of the day. Also, because damage done now by malnutrition will limit their future—150.8 million children are physically and/or mentally stunted because of insufficient nutrients.   

Making our promise  

World Vision is a child-focused agency that has, over the decades, seen enough international meetings promise much and deliver too little. The realpolitik is that it is not always easy for governments, donors, corporations and others to make bold commitments—they have many demands on their funds and priorities. World Vision is so concerned that 2030 is current set to see 600 million people malnourished we have determined to make a bold commitment to Nutrition for Growth this year: that we will reach 16 million children with investments in funding, advocacy, programming and more—all to improve children’s access to proper nutrition by 2030.   

We, and our sister organisation VisionFund are investing and leveraging $1bn and $1.1bn respectively and focusing our programming and service-delivery in multiple sectors to also address nutrition needs.   

In a disruptive new era of international cooperation and collaboration, the question is whether governments will take this chance to disrupt the status quo one step further? Will they make the time to listen to children and plan their commitments informed by youth voices, or default to traditional approaches of top-down decision making. Will those in positions of power and authority be found wanting by children and young people? Or will they take a leaf from France’s book and invite young people to the table?   

ENDS   

For more information about World Vision at N4G click here, for the Nutrition Dialogues click here, and click here to see videos from young people including some of those mentioned above. 

Lisa O’Shea is World Vision International’s Senior Director of Social Mobilisation, Advocacy & External Engagement lisa_oshea@wvi.org  Her responsibilities include children’s participation, social mobilisation and Amplifying Children’s Voices Digitally.  Lisa has worked across a number of policy, advocacy and communications roles and on campaigns spanning health, HIV/AIDS, climate change, trade and in the European Parliament. Originally from Ireland, Lisa joined WVI in 2010 working in South Africa, Kenya, Lebanon and is now based in the UK. She is passionate about supporting children’s and citizens’ ability to influence the decisions that affect their lives.