We welcome the launch of the second Global Nutrition Report, which highlights how all 193 countries of the world are seriously affected by malnutrition. As it reveals that a staggering one in three people are malnourished worldwide, we hope the report will give added impetus to those world leaders gathering in New York later this week to commit fully to ending world hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030, as part of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Malnutrition kills people. It stunts their physical development and their learning.  It limits their livelihoods.  It keeps them in poverty.  It undermines the next generation.  It places massive burdens on everyone in society through increased health costs and care needs of those affected. The Global Nutrition Report 2015 highlights the role of improving nutrition in driving the Sustainable Development Goals forward and rightly calls for the process to include specific nutrition goals, targets and indicators that will hold all nutrition stakeholders accountable for the next 15 years.

While progress is being made to reduce malnutrition worldwide, it’s currently too slow and too uneven. It is estimated that, globally, less than 15 per cent of wasted children are currently getting the treatment they need – in some countries this percentage is far lower. These statistics should be worrying nations worldwide, given that wasting claims a million young lives every year. The Global Nutrition Report 2015 shows that the number of countries on course for the stunting target are almost triple that of wasting. What’s happened since last year’s report, which stated that “wasting is the indicator for which the largest number of countries are making progress”? More needs to be done by countries to save children's lives. And quickly. The scale of suffering it is causing demands an ambitious and strict timetable of concrete action.

We urge all the governments adopting the post-2015 goals on 25 September to immediately get to work on establishing a range of national targets featuring nutrition to help ensure the world can meet the ambitious and transformative new global goals. As the Global Nutrition Report makes clear, urgent and decisive action by all will be needed if the post-2015 process is to be a success.

More money needs to be invested in nutrition support – a suggested US$10 billion annually. According to the report, funding has doubled from just under US$0.5 billion to US$1 billion between 2012 and 2013. But we are still a long way off where we need to be funding-wise and we need to maintain momentum.  It is absolutely essential to use the existing funding more strategically, and one way to do this is to maximize the impact of interventions which are likely to have the greatest impact on nutrition. In the meantime though, we can ensure we get the most out of the money already being invested by holding donors and national governments accountable for their commitments.

Ultimately, the success of the post-2015 development agenda will not be judged on the commitments made this month but on the specific and measurable action taken from now and in the immediate years ahead.

It is imperative that the world’s governments now work together. Together, we can end child deaths by severe malnutrition in our lifetime and reach the global targets on child undernutrition. The world is watching.