Last week, Abidjan hosted the 2017 Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Global Gathering to highlight the nutrition progress and challenges experienced by SUN countries in 2017. A look back at the year found that progress has indeed been made; in 2012, 165 million children were at risk of stunting, declining to 155 million in 2017. Additionally, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Myanmar, Ethiopia and Mauritania reported that the number of stunted children in their countries had decreased.
Plans for the coming year were also a key focus for attendees such as SUN Government Focal Points and their partners from civil society, United Nation agencies, private sector partners, academia and governments. Attendees discussed the current state of nutrition and shared innovations, solutions and tools to improve nutrition globally.
Since 2010, the SUN Movement has worked collaboratively with a number of stakeholders, across a number of sectors, to end malnutrition. SUN is a country-led movement, uniting people from 2,000 organisations in 39 countries to strengthen advocacy, raise awareness and build political will to improve global nutrition.
Integrated approaches to nutrition
A recurring theme at the gathering was the importance of an intersectional approach to nutrition. SUN has created alliances between nutrition, women’s empowerment, sustainable food systems, healthcare, education, and water and sanitation to ensure nutritional progress drives forward other key development issues.
SUN champions this approach through their own country programmes; 24 SUN countries have implemented a 14-week fully-paid maternity leave and 45 SUN countries have put in place legal measures relating to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes; both of which are a step forward when it comes to gender and nutrition.
The Importance of data collection
Currently, 37 SUN countries document national nutritional activities across sectors through a common results framework (CRF). Similarly, SUN is developing the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) system, which uses globally agreed indicators to monitor progress.
Find out more about Global Gathering outcomes and plans.
Useful Resources Shared
Can be found at the 2017 SUN Global Gathering Knowledge Management (KM) and Technical Assistance (TA) resource page.
The collection was prepared by nutrition KM and TA providers. The resources support 2017 SUN GG attendees as well as the broader international community working on nutrition policy and programs. Here is a summary of a few of the resources in this link.