The SUN Business Network (SBN) aims to increase the availability and affordability of safe, nutritious foods to consumers, especially low-income consumers through activities at global and national levels. At a national level, the SBN convenes businesses, assesses technical, financial and other business support service needs for members, and advocates the role of business in addressing nutrition at country level. Read More
The SUN Business Network (SBN) aims to increase the availability and affordability of safe, nutritious foods to consumers, especially low-income consumers through activities at global and national levels. At a national level, the SBN convenes businesses, assesses technical, financial and other business support service needs for members, and advocates the role of business in addressing nutrition at country level. At a global level, the SBN acts as a focal point for engaging multinational businesses in nutrition activities such as making workplace nutrition commitments.Read More
The SUN Business Network (SBN) aims to increase the availability and affordability of safe, nutritious foods to consumers, especially low-income consumers through activities at global and national levels. At a national level, the SBN convenes businesses, assesses technical, financial and other business support service needs for members, and advocates the role of business in addressing nutrition at country level.Read More
Emerging networks are in SUN Countries where the government has made a commitment to ending malnutrition through a multi-stakeholder approach and private sector companies have begun to mobilise their support for a multistakeholder, multisectoral approach to improving nutrition. Read More
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Cambodia joined the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement in 2014, after which it began mobilising actors in the private sector. The country’s SUN Business Network (SBN) officially launched on 14 July 2021, and already has 30 SBN members, 36% of which are led by women.
A focus on better nutrition for all Cambodians is essential, as Cambodia is increasingly affected by the triple burden of malnutrition. Like many emerging middle-income countries, economic growth, urbanization, and related lifestyle changes have brought the country to a nutritional junction: while overweight and obesity are on the rise, undernutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies, is a lingering burden. Although Cambodia’s overweight and obesity prevalence is lower than the regional average, at 18% for women of reproductive age, this number tripled between 2000 and 2014, alongside a rise in diet-related noncommunicable diseases like diabetes. Meanwhile, preliminary data from the 2021-2022 Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey (CDHS) indicates stunting in children under five has reduced from 32% in 2014 to 22% today, a rate of progress that has outpaced national targets. However, 10% of children under five still suffer from wasting, which has remained unchanged in the past decade. This level is even higher in some provinces where the prevalence of wasting exceeds ‘crisis’ thresholds at over 15%. Moreover, only 53% of infants are exclusively breastfed during the first six months of life – down 30% since 2010. Compounding existing socio-economic vulnerabilities, Cambodians have faced new threats to food security and nutrition in recent years due to COVID-19, multiple climate shocks, and the global food and fuel crisis. Even prior to the latest series of crises, one in five Cambodian households - and in some parts of the country two in three households - could not afford the most basic nutritious diet according to a 2017 analysis conducted by WFP. As such, a significant share of the population is not consuming adequate quantities of much-needed nutrients from fruits, vegetables, and animal-source foods.
SBN Cambodia is co-convened by WFP and the Council for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD). It also comprises an Advisory Group, made of 15 representatives (over 50% of whom are members of the private sector) who meet every three months. They offer guidance to the SBN team on activities they can engage in to continue progressing, and also help to raise awareness within the private sector around the importance of enhanced nutrition.
In Cambodia, SBN aims to serve as the key coordination platform through which actors in the private sector will be able to sustainably contribute to improved nutrition for the country’s population via healthier diets and practices.
In order to help achieve this vision, five strategic pillars have been outlined:
Actions are already being taken by SBN Cambodia to work towards these, including recruiting and retaining members; educating employers on the importance of workplace nutrition and supporting them in providing staff with healthy food options; and working with businesses to fortify rice.
The strategy identified five strategic pillars, namely: 1) Develop a satisfied, supportive, and active membership base that includes SMEs and women-led businesses; 2) Increase consumer demand for nutritious foods and awareness of healthy diets and practices for improved nutrition; 3) Increase the supply of nutritious foods and fortified products available to consumers; 4) Strengthen the enabling environment for nutrition through improved standards, regulation, laws, and policy; and 5) promote health and nutrition in communities and in the workplace through workforce nutrition programmes and better access to safe, nutritious and affordable foods.
