This guide emphasizes the urgent need to address malnutrition in all its forms, including undernutrition, overweight, obesity, and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) like heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and cancers. It advocates for healthier, more sustainable food systems that prioritize nutritious, safe foods while reducing waste. This approach is crucial to improving health, productivity, and reducing healthcare costs globally.

2025 is a pivotal year for advancing global nutrition policy. It marks the end of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2025) and the deadline for WHO's maternal and child nutrition targets (expected to be revised and extended to 2030) and NCD targets (expected to be revised and extended to 2050).

The year also features key global events that bring opportunities to advance health and nutrition policy, such as the Paris Nutrition for Growth Summit, the UN Food Systems Summit +4 Stocktake, the upcoming UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs and Mental Health, and the next UN Climate Change Conference (COP30).In light of these upcoming opportunities, this document aims to guide advocacy and accountability efforts from civil society organizations (CSOs) and inform how they can mobilize other stakeholders in these food and nutrition policy processes from a health perspective to ensure food systems are effectively transformed.

The guide is complemented by From Policy to Plate: A Collection of Case Studies [2] which provides examples of how countries are implementing existing policy solutions to improve nutrition and food systems for the prevention of diet-related NCDs.

N.B. Right after the publication of this guide, on 24 March 2025, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution [3] to extend the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition to 2030.