Nutrition is the neglected stepchild of development. Malnutrition—a lack of proper nutrients and vitamins, rather than just too few calories—is responsible for 45% of all deaths of children under five. Odd, then, that only one of the United Nations’ 169 proposed development targets, due to be adopted next year, has anything to do with nutrition. A UN conference in Rome today will try to encourage governments to pay more attention. A review of nutrition prepared for the conference (to be published annually henceforth) argues that every $1 of investment in nutritional programmes produces $16 of benefits, an exceptionally high return. Yet globally there has been little improvement since 2010 in rates of wasting in children under five, or in anaemia among their mothers. Policymakers must also tackle a want of information: only 60% of countries even have basic data on nutrition.