The UN’s World Social Report 2025 has painted a damning picture – rising poverty, widening inequality and escalating climate shocks that are undoing decades of social progress. More than 3.8 billion people still lack basic social support systems.
Social protection policies and programmes are particularly sparse in low-income countries, where the need is greatest. Those left out, often women and children, are likely to also be the most nutritionally vulnerable.
As leaders gather in Doha this week for the Second World Summit for Social Development, one question should frame the discussion: “How can social protection systems not only protect, but empower people to break the cycle of poverty and malnutrition, across every stage of life?”
Nutrition and social protection are mutually reinforcing. When people have access to nutritious food, health and productivity improve. When these systems fail, inequality deepens.
Well designed and resourced, social protection systems can facilitate access to complementary support and services to address direct, underlying and root causes of malnutrition, especially during the crucial first 1,000 days of a child’s life.
Social protection can be used to strengthen safety nets, for example with the provision of food or cash transfers that enable vulnerable populations to access a nutritious diet. Nutrition-sensitive cash transfers help reduce reliance on cheap, unhealthy foods and establish healthy habits early in life.
Most of the 67 countries of the Sun Movement (79 per cent) have highlighted the integration of nutrition across sectors as a way to maximise efficiency and impact. However, in many countries policies and budgets are siloed, even when people’s lives are not. While nutrition is often integrated into health systems in Sun countries, less than half consistently integrate it into social protection, highlighting a significant missed opportunity.
One good example of a country that is successfully bringing nutrition and social protection together is The Gambia where a “cash plus care” model led by the National Nutrition Agency combines cash transfers with nutrition and health education.
It is vital to weave nutrition goals into safety nets and emergency responses
Despite being newly launched, integration across social welfare, education and health has already had a measurable impact – 98 per cent of participating households now afford more varied and nutritious meals; while 54 per cent of families have started small businesses, 58 per cent of them led by women. By linking income support with knowledge and empowerment, the model transforms temporary relief into long-term resilience, helping women feed their families, educate their children and build independent futures.
School feeding programmes are also powerful social investments – they reduce the financial burden on low-income families and keep children in school. They can also create co-benefits across local economies. In Rwanda, a school meals programme sources food from local farmers, improving educational outcomes, while also boosting the farmers’ incomes. Every healthy meal served in these schools is a down payment on a child’s future, and in this project the investments are playing double duty for the local community and economy.
However even the best-designed systems can be thrown off course. Across low and middle-income countries, recurring shocks – conflict, inflation, extreme weather and displacement – disrupt access to food, health and livelihoods. These crises affect people at every stage of life.
When crises hit, social protection that can quickly respond makes the difference between recovery and setback. That is why it is vital to weave nutrition goals into safety nets and emergency responses.
For example, cash transfers combined with nutrition and health services can expand during crises to help families keep access to healthy food and essential care. Connecting these systems to climate adaptation plans also strengthens resilience and reduces the need for constant emergency aid.
But while the need is universal, the means are not. Low-income and fragile countries face constraints such as limited fiscal headroom, poor access to financing and insufficient technical capacity to design and manage adaptive systems.
Bringing nutrition into broader systems like social protection can unlock more diverse and sustainable financing by tapping into existing national and global funding streams. With nutrition still receiving less than 1 per cent of total Official Development Assistance, integration is not just smart – it’s essential. The Sun Movement supports countries to strengthen this integration and to secure the financing needed to make nutrition gains sustainable over time.
If governments, donors and development banks make nutrition integration the norm we can transform social protection into social empowerment, building resilient societies that thrive through every challenge. Social progress begins with nourishment. It’s time to make nutrition everyone’s business.
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The biog
Favourite films: Casablanca and Lawrence of Arabia
Favourite books: Start with Why by Simon Sinek and Good to be Great by Jim Collins
Favourite dish: Grilled fish
Inspiration: Sheikh Zayed's visionary leadership taught me to embrace new challenges.
What is the Supreme Petroleum Council?
The Abu Dhabi Supreme Petroleum Council was established in 1988 and is the highest governing body in Abu Dhabi’s oil and gas industry. The council formulates, oversees and executes the emirate’s petroleum-related policies. It also approves the allocation of capital spending across state-owned Adnoc’s upstream, downstream and midstream operations and functions as the company’s board of directors. The SPC’s mandate is also required for auctioning oil and gas concessions in Abu Dhabi and for awarding blocks to international oil companies. The council is chaired by Sheikh Khalifa, the President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi while Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, is the vice chairman.
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Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
List of alleged parties
- May 15 2020: Boris Johnson is said to have attended a Downing Street pizza party
- 27 Nov 2020: PM gives speech at leaving do for his staff
- Dec 10 2020: Staff party held by then-education secretary Gavin Williamson
- Dec 13 2020: Mr Johnson and his then-fiancee Carrie Symonds throw a flat party
- Dec 14 2020: Shaun Bailey holds staff party at Conservative Party headquarters
- Dec 15 2020: PM takes part in a staff quiz
- Dec 18 2020: Downing Street Christmas party
Anxiety and work stress major factors
Anxiety, work stress and social isolation are all factors in the recogised rise in mental health problems.
A study UAE Ministry of Health researchers published in the summer also cited struggles with weight and illnesses as major contributors.
Its authors analysed a dozen separate UAE studies between 2007 and 2017. Prevalence was often higher in university students, women and in people on low incomes.
One showed 28 per cent of female students at a Dubai university reported symptoms linked to depression. Another in Al Ain found 22.2 per cent of students had depressive symptoms - five times the global average.
It said the country has made strides to address mental health problems but said: “Our review highlights the overall prevalence of depressive symptoms and depression, which may long have been overlooked."
Prof Samir Al Adawi, of the department of behavioural medicine at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, who was not involved in the study but is a recognised expert in the Gulf, said how mental health is discussed varies significantly between cultures and nationalities.
“The problem we have in the Gulf is the cross-cultural differences and how people articulate emotional distress," said Prof Al Adawi.
“Someone will say that I have physical complaints rather than emotional complaints. This is the major problem with any discussion around depression."
Daniel Bardsley
The past Palme d'Or winners
2018 Shoplifters, Hirokazu Kore-eda
2017 The Square, Ruben Ostlund
2016 I, Daniel Blake, Ken Loach
2015 Dheepan, Jacques Audiard
2014 Winter Sleep (Kış Uykusu), Nuri Bilge Ceylan
2013 Blue is the Warmest Colour (La Vie d'Adèle: Chapitres 1 et 2), Abdellatif Kechiche, Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux
2012 Amour, Michael Haneke
2011 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick
2010 Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Lung Bunmi Raluek Chat), Apichatpong Weerasethakul
2009 The White Ribbon (Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte), Michael Haneke
2008 The Class (Entre les murs), Laurent Cantet
What it means to be a conservationist
Who is Enric Sala?
Enric Sala is an expert on marine conservation and is currently the National Geographic Society's Explorer-in-Residence. His love of the sea started with his childhood in Spain, inspired by the example of the legendary diver Jacques Cousteau. He has been a university professor of Oceanography in the US, as well as working at the Spanish National Council for Scientific Research and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Biodiversity and the Bio-Economy. He has dedicated his life to protecting life in the oceans. Enric describes himself as a flexitarian who only eats meat occasionally.
What is biodiversity?
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, all life on earth – including in its forests and oceans – forms a “rich tapestry of interconnecting and interdependent forces”. Biodiversity on earth today is the product of four billion years of evolution and consists of many millions of distinct biological species. The term ‘biodiversity’ is relatively new, popularised since the 1980s and coinciding with an understanding of the growing threats to the natural world including habitat loss, pollution and climate change. The loss of biodiversity itself is dangerous because it contributes to clean, consistent water flows, food security, protection from floods and storms and a stable climate. The natural world can be an ally in combating global climate change but to do so it must be protected. Nations are working to achieve this, including setting targets to be reached by 2020 for the protection of the natural state of 17 per cent of the land and 10 per cent of the oceans. However, these are well short of what is needed, according to experts, with half the land needed to be in a natural state to help avert disaster.
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RESULT
Bournemouth 0 Southampton 3 (Djenepo (37', Redmond 45' 1, 59')
Man of the match Nathan Redmond (Southampton)
