SUN Global Gathering: An ENN viewpoint

The 2017 SUN Global Gathering (GG) in Côte d’Ivoire (7-9 November 2017) brought together all SUN Government Focal Points and representatives of their partners from civil society, donors, UN agencies, private-sector partners, academia, media, parliamentarians and others. It was the first time that a GG took place in a SUN country. The primary goals of the meeting were to:

• Celebrate SUN countries’ progress in advancing implementation of national nutrition plans, better understand challenges and collectively identify solutions;
• Create a space where SUN countries and the SUN Movement support system could interact and get to know each other better in order to sharpen skills, deepen understanding of key issues and agree on priority actions to ensure everyone is staying on track to deliver results; and
• Showcase the wealth of experience, knowledge and resources that each SUN country has to offer, while strengthening networks to best capitalise on these assets.

The gathering was organised around plenary sessions, parallel workshops and a ‘marketplace’ of stands. The plenary sessions involved discussions among high-level representatives and participants on a number of themes, including: the multiple burdens of malnutrition; nutrition in fragile and crisis contexts; the key findings of the 2017 SUN Movement Progress Report; investing in the implementation of nutrition actions; and the added value of the SUN Movement Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) system. There were six parallel workshops on each day with topics ranging from ‘How can small and medium enterprises be supported to help improve nutrition outcomes?’ to ‘What can be done to improve and protect nutrition outcomes in fragile contexts?’ The marketplace was a forum where all SUN countries and networks were invited to bring material for sharing and learning about each other’s efforts to scale up nutrition.

Given the very wide scope of subjects and country experiences presented and discussed at the meeting, the following is not intended as a summary of all the key points, but rather a synopsis of what stood out from the perspective of Jeremy Shoham, one of ENN’s technical directors:

• The world is considerably off course to meet the World Health Assembly nutrition targets and the Sustainable Development Goals;
• There is progress in some countries, but very few are addressing overweight, obesity and related non-communicable diseases alongside undernutrition;
•  Some countries have made considerable progress in reducing levels of undernutrition and increasing spend on nutrition, e.g. Zambia, Burkino Faso, El Salvador and Nepal, but the majority have stagnated, with some going backwards in terms of spending;
• Since the inception of the SUN Movement the global caseload of stunting has decreased by ten million to 155 million people;
• SUN networks are established in all SUN signatory countries, but there is not adequate information about the achievements and impact of these networks. The MEAL system has now compiled a baseline of information about these networks, which can help track their future progress (see NEX online resources).

Finally, the nutrition situation in fragile and conflict affected settings was given prominence as these countries have a particularly high burden of stunting up to 45 per cent, a percentage expected to significantly increase by 2030 if left unchecked. This underlines the importance to all of us that the SUN Movement is paying particular attention to these highly vulnerable contexts through greater linking of the humanitarian and development systems. The energy and commitment of GG participants was almost palpable. Every national colleague who spoke had invaluable insights into experiences around scaling up effective nutrition programming. The report of the Côte d’Ivoire GG should therefore contain critical insights and lessons to support future scaling-up nutrition efforts.