2020 was a unique year for many women, men and their families. This also rings true for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, and, indeed, for nutrition. At the start of Decade of Delivery for the for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the SUN Movement has marked its 10th anniversary, #SUN10ary, and prepared for its third phase (2021-2025).
All the while, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a halt, and the disease – and its socioeconomic consequences – have had disastrous impacts on nutrition, risking a reversal of a decade of progress.
For the SUN Movement, now is the moment to take stock of how far we have come in bringing together multiple sectors and stakeholders, to put in place policies, systems and enabling environments for collective nutrition action, while we reconsider our approach to better respond to a changing global landscape.
57 SUN member States have put in place national nutrition platforms to align actions around common results.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed profound dysfunctionalities in the systems that are essential to good nutrition, including health systems, food systems and social protection systems. These are underpinned by current trends of urbanisation, climate change, growing inequalities, conflicts and the co-existence of multiple forms of malnutrition, to name a few. Now is the time to safeguard nutrition progress and ensure nutrition is prioritised in COVID-19 responses and in recovery across SUN countries.
The third phase of the SUN Movement starts in 2021 and gives us ample opportunity to learn from the many lessons of the past decade and make sure the right course corrections are made, with accelerated speed.
Looking ahead, all SUN Movement actors stand united – in solidarity, commitment and support – with all countries to help them recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and build ‘forward’ better. Only by working in an aligned way can countries be supported to put in place the right mechanisms and improve nutrition, leaving no one behind.
This report will take an innovative approach. This will be the first of four launches, where bite-sized, illustrative stories to spur nutrition action around SUN and beyond will be in the spotlight. What’s coming next?
Go to: www.scalingupnutrition.org/progress for updates.