By: Heather Danton, Director, USAID Advancing Nutrition 

As we approach the two year anniversary of the first reported cases of the novel beta coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and its many impacts on our world, I have been reflecting on the 2020 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report, published in July of that year. The report attempted to forecast the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food supply chains, health services, and families. The evidence was clear: Not only was the world unlikely to meet the Sustainable Development Goals of ending hunger and malnutrition in all its forms by 2030 before the pandemic, COVID-19 now threatened much of the progress we have made together over the past two decades. Fortunately, the nutrition community saw the COVID-19 pandemic as a rallying call, making 2021 the make or break year for nutrition and galvanizing support to not just prevent backsliding but advance nutrition around the world.