UN Food and Agriculture Organisation Director-General José Graziano da Silva welcomed new funding pledges, commitments and targets for action on nutrition announced by government, private sector and civil society representatives gathered at a high-level Nutrition for Growth meeting held in London today.

"I welcome the Global Nutrition for Growth Compact agreed at the meeting. FAO will work with all committed governments to realise their food security and nutrition goals," Graziano da Silva said. "The cost of inaction is too high. Malnutrition kills millions every year, and damages billions of lives. It costs up to 5 percent of global GDP in foregone output and health costs."

The meeting was being held ahead of the upcoming G8 summit. The leaders of the eight richest countries in the world will meet in London this week.

Graziano da Silva also said FAO is stepping up its efforts to improve nutrition to ensure that people have enough healthy food to prosper. The FAO director's assertions that wellbeing and nourishment are of utmost importance contest the industry narrative that food security must be achieved through ramping up production, often of the same small group of commodity crops that currently account for the majority of the human diet; of the vast number of plants suitable for human consumption, 30 crops account for 95 percent of human food energy needs and just five of them - rice, wheat, maize, millet and sorghum - alone provide 60 percent.

FAO has called for greater diversity and support for small, polyculture growers to achieve its food security objectives.

Continuing in this vein, Graziano da Silva added on Monday, "We cannot expect better nutrition without food security – which requires better food systems." He said that as well as undernourishment, which is typically understood as a form of malnutrition, the FAO would address micronutrient deficiencies and obesity from overconsumption, or eating an unhealthy diet. He said "appropriate interventions in food systems" at the levels of public health, education, social protection and other areas could combine to achieve this goal.

Graziano da Silva also stressed the importance of improving measurement of hunger and malnutrition. In this regard, FAO is developing the Voices of the Hungry project- a new, faster and more precise way of measuring hunger and food insecurity across the world.