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9Dec

SBN Delegation Attends SUN Global Gathering 2019

Over 1,200 participants gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal from 4-7 November 2019 for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Global Gathering, the biennial flagship event of the SUN Movement.

The gathering brought together SUN Government Focal Points and representatives from civil society, donor, UN agencies, private sector, academia, media, parliamentarians and youth from 61 SUN Countries to reflect on the SUN Movement’s progress and challenges over the last two years. It also marked an important occasion to shape the third phase of the SUN Movement (2021-2025) and discuss the SUN Movement’s commitments to the upcoming Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit (2020).

During the four day gathering, participants had the opportunity, through shared learnings, best practices and innovations, to showcase how multi-stakeholder partnerships are successfully contributing to the reduction of malnutrition across SUN Countries. While the prevalence of stunting amongst children under five years is decreasing and stunting has reduced globally over the last nine years from 171 million (2010) to 149 million children (2018), only 11 SUN Countries are on track to meet 2025 World Health Assembly stunting targets. At the same time, overweight and obesity rates continue to increase across all regions. (See SUN Progress Report 2019).

This year saw the SUN Business Network’s largest delegation at the SUN Global Gathering, with representation from 22 SUN Countries. This included dedicated SBN country network coordinators, private sector representatives and SUN Government Focal Points – all committed to bringing together and engaging business to improve nutrition.

The SUN Business Network led a number of side events during the SUN Global Gathering to advocate for greater business contributions to improve the consumption, access and affordability of safe and nutritious food in SUN Countries.

These side events included:

  • SUN Business Network Stakeholder Workshop – facilitated exchange of information and learnings between SBN internal stakeholders
  • Joint SUN Networks Pre-Session – provided an informal platform to discuss the successes and challenges of SUN networks and increase inter-network collaboration
  • Emerging Business Practices & Consumer Trends in SUN Countries (parallel session) – provided an overview of emerging business practices and consumer trends that can contribute to better access to safe nutritious food in middle and lower-income settings
  • Unlocking the Potential of SMEs for Nutrition – showcased how the SBN supports SMEs and the impact they can have on increasing access to nutrition to low income consumers

The role of the private sector and the need for a multi-stakeholder approach to scale up nutrition was also championed by SUN Lead Group and SUN Business Network Advisory Group member, Monica Musonda, who called for “governments to create incentives for companies championing nutrition, for civil society to call out bad business and for donors to invest in nutritious food companies” during the closing ceremony of the SUN Global Gathering.

The SUN Business Network has made significant progress in the last year with:

Read our full 2018-2019 Highlights Report HERE.