Seeds of Change: Catalysing Zero Hunger through Innovative Social Protection in Fragile and Least Developed Countries

The midterm review of Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) towards achieving Zero Hunger reveals significant off-track progress and even regression, especially in fragile and Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Urgent, evidence-based interventions are needed to accelerate progress towards Zero Hunger targets at scale. A growing body of evidence shows that social protection initiatives have significant potential to contribute to this agenda, but they are often hindered by weak multisectoral linkages and insufficient long-term investments, particularly in LDCs and fragile contexts.

This paper explores the potential pivotal role of social protection systems to enhance access to food, nutrition, and essential needs to combat intersecting inequalities, poverty, and hunger, aligning with the T20's Task Force 1. By leveraging insights from the global south, where social protection has demonstrated substantial contributions to human capital and local economic development, we argue that the UN Secretary General's call for a "new era of social protection" should prioritize food and nutrition security to address poverty and structural vulnerability comprehensively, through a revised framework of social protection for food and nutrition security