Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Nutrition Dialogues?

Building from the successful Food Systems Summit Dialogues process of the 2021 Food Systems Summit, Nutrition Dialogues are designed as a global programme of nutrition conversations that will bring the perspectives and lived experiences of those who are most at risk of being undernourished to the forefront of global nutrition policy discussions.  The initiating partners of the Nutrition Dialogues are World Vision International and 4SD Foundation. Mobilising partners are joining the effort by engaging their networks and convening Stakeholder Dialogues and Children’s Workshops.

What is the purpose of the Nutrition Dialogues and why now?

The purpose of the Nutrition Dialogues is to increase focus on the challenges of ensuring the good nutrition of women and children in low-income settings, and to elicit their views as well as perspectives of diverse stakeholders on ways to improve this situation, as well as encourage more ambitious, effective and accountable action. The year 2025 is a significant one given that the Nutrition for Growth Summit (N4G) will take place in Paris in March 2025. The outcomes of the Nutrition Dialogues will be synthesised into both global and national reports that will be used to influence the N4G process and beyond.

Whose voices are the Nutrition Dialogues seeking to elevate and amplify?

It is particularly important that women’s and children’s voices are heard as they are often the groups of people who are most at risk of being malnourished and are seldom included in local, national or global discussions about which actions have the greatest impact on their nutrition.

When are these Nutrition Dialogues happening and how many people are they intended to reach?

Nutrition Dialogues will take place from August 2024. Convenors who upload feedback forms on this Nutrition Dialogues Portal, before the end of December 2024, will be included in the global synthesis report which will be used to influence the Nutrition for Growth Summit, March 2025. The aim is to engage at least 6,000 Dialogue participants but the ambition is to reach many more.

How many Nutrition Dialogues will there be and where will they take place?

The aim is to have at least 200 Nutrition Dialogues in 50 countries (with each Dialogue engaging around 30 Participants). We hope that many organisations will come on board and that the programme vastly exceeds this number.

Who can convene and participate in the Nutrition Dialogues?

The Nutrition Dialogues programme is open to anyone who wishes to contribute to the global discourse on people’s nutrition by convening a facilitated Stakeholder Dialogue or Children’s Workshop.

There are no restrictions to becoming a Convenor of a Stakeholder Dialogue event beyond adhering to the Principles of Engagement. If you want to convene a Stakeholder Dialogue, your first step is to register on the Nutrition Dialogues portal here.

Those wishing to convene a Children’s Workshop event must also meet additional safeguarding requirements. Further information can be found in the Safeguarding Framework (see Guidance Resources).

It is important to note that the role of Convenor is a valuable voluntary commitment; individuals either perform it as part of their existing job or generously volunteer their time to make a meaningful impact.

What is the Nutrition Dialogues Portal?

This Nutrition Dialogues Portal is a dedicated platform that is free to use, secure and community driven. It enables Convenors from around the world to announce their Dialogue events and publish corresponding feedback in the public domain. By making this available publicly, the data from Nutrition Dialogue events contributes to a repository of outcomes that can actively inform responses to nutrition challenges.

The Portal also serves as the central place for all information related to the Nutrition Dialogues programme, including guidance materials as well as updates and announcements. Registered users have access to a helpdesk for any questions or issues.

By mid-August guidance materials will be available in English, Spanish, and French. Convenors are free translate the materials into local languages but unfortunately there is no central pot of financial resources to support this.

How are the Nutrition Dialogues structured?

The Nutrition Dialogues programme consists of two different activities: the Stakeholder Dialogues and the Children’s Workshops

What are the Stakeholder Dialogues?

Stakeholder Dialogues are opportunities for diverse participants to engage in dialogue within a specific stakeholder group (e.g. between women’s groups, or between farmers) or bringing multiple stakeholders together (such as farmers, local businesses, civil society, schools, local authorities, national government, scientists and faith groups). The duration of the Stakeholder Dialogues is 2.5-3 hours including 75-90 minutes allocated to the discussion group. The number of participants convened is recommended to be around 30-40 which will be broke into 3-4 discussion groups of 8 to 10 participants each. The Stakeholder Dialogues will be facilitated by a convenor, a curator, facilitators for each discussion group, and a record keeper. Learn more >

What are the Children’s Workshops?

Children’s Workshops convene children from 12-18 years-old using a specific methodology which is age- appropriate and sensitive to the specific needs of children and young people. The duration is 1.5 hours, with 60 mins allocated to the exploration and ideas and solutions sections. Whilst Children’s Workshops are often convened by an adult facilitator (e.g., community member, schoolteacher, local NGO officer, etc.) they can also be organised and facilitated by a child or young person. Convenors of all Children’s Workshops must adhere to child safeguarding standards and behaviour protocols to ensure that children and young people’s participation is ethical, safe, inclusive, sensitive to risks and respectful of local values and cultures. Learn more >

Will there be Training and Orientation sessions for Nutrition Dialogues Convenors?

Yes. Collective online training and orientation spaces will be organised for Convenors, Curators, Facilitators and Record Keepers of Nutrition Dialogues. These Spaces are designed to orientate those who are involved in organising a Nutrition Dialogue event on the overall process, to strengthen their capabilities and to enable them to learn from the experiences of others. Details on the dates and times of sessions can be found once logged in to the Portal. Selected sessions will include French and Spanish interpretation.

How will the Nutrition Dialogues contribute to N4G and feed into the N4G governance?

A suite of communications and engagement activities will kick off at the SUN Movement Global Gathering in Kigali in November 2024 and will be accelerated in the run up to N4G in March 2025. At the Nutrition Solutions Village at N4G in Paris, these key messages will be presented visually and personally by some participants from the dialogue events. The Nutrition Dialogues partners will develop dedicated communications materials that can be shared with local and national decision makers, as well as incorporated into current and future advocacy campaigns.

The global synthesis report will be disseminated and socialized before the N4G Summit to inform different kinds of commitment makers. We plan to have a space within the Summit to show a curation of the Dialogues and the synthesis report. We will leverage the synthesized evidence of the Dialogues to continue meeting with stakeholders to discuss the dialogue outcomes and compare those recommendations with the commitments made at the Summit. More detailed plans for engagement pre-, during, and post-N4G – including child participation – will be developed and communicated in due course.

Will the topics of the Nutrition Dialogues be provided?

The suggested approach is that Nutrition Dialogues be participant-led and that Convenors and Facilitators should not seek to control the conversation. In this way, the Dialogues will reflect local conditions, feelings and priorities. The Stakeholder Dialogues method does include guidance for Convenors wanting to set a “dialogue topic” which can help Participants set a shared future state.

Can the Nutrition Dialogues be recorded on video, and will photos be taken for communications purposes?

This is an open public programme, and Convenors are encouraged to communicate about their Nutrition Dialogue before, during and after the event itself. We do advise keeping discussion groups private and a safe space, but what happens in the plenary sessions can be public and captured by videos or pictures, so long as positions and perspectives are not attributed to any specific individual or organisation, and participants have provided their consent.

Photos and videos of children and young people under 18 years old are not encouraged.

How will the outcomes from the Nutrition Dialogues be collected?

The outcomes will be collected through a Feedback Form, which is a standardized template, across all events and it is the same for everyone to use. The Feedback Form is designed to be open as possible and adaptable to local contexts. Guidance on how to complete the Feedback Form is available in the relevant Feedback Framework (See Guidance Resources).

Once published on the portal, the Feedback Form becomes publicly available for analysis and learning. The Feedback Forms can be submitted in any language, however, forms which are not submitted in English, French or Spanish will be translated using online tools.

The Feedback Form template is available in English, French and Spanish.

How will the Synthesis report be prepared?

Feedback Forms which have been uploaded to the Nutrition Dialogues Portal by the end of December 2024 will be synthesised in advance of N4G 2025. The synthesis report will highlight the nutrition-related challenges faced by women,children and other diverse stakeholders. Preparation of the synthesis will involve several steps for data coding, analysis and identification of the patterns and themes across the Dialogues (and per country).

A standardised approach will be used to code qualitative data in order to enable quantitative analysis. The synthesis report will outline key messages from the Nutrition Dialogues – especially the perspectives of women and children about issues they face with maintaining their and their children’s nutrition. These messages will be brought first to the forefront of the N4G discussions, and then to national engagements. The plan is that there will be one global report and that country level synthesis reports will also be developed.