Nutrition: What's the smartest SDG target?

Most people would feel that feeding people properly – particularly young children – is something we simply have to tackle. And it turns out that what looks like a good idea morally is also really good economically.
 
The first 1,000 days of a child’s life – from conception to age two – are vital for proper development. Poorly nourished infants become stunted (being lower than the expected height for age), and fall behind better-fed ones in developing cognitive skills. This lack of development has real long-term consequences. Stunted children do less well at school and lead poorer adult lives.

What's the smartest target?
 
As reported in Reuters and in The Wall Street Journal, alleviating stunting can be done relatively cheaply – with a suite of interventions that produce dramatic long-term results. 
 
In total, if an individual works until 50 years old, each dollar spent returns $45. This only accounts for increased earning potential and excludes health benefits of better nutrition including 15% reduction in under-5 deaths, so it is likely a conservative estimate.

The payback changes across different countries. This is because the cost of nutrition interventions are about the same everywhere, but in countries with higher incomes or with higher economic growth rates, the benefit of smarter people are even greater. For Indonesia, each dollar would return $166 in future, higher earnings.

You can read the paper on nutrition here and download the one page PDF here.