Nearly 400 people gathered at the UN for the High Level Meeting on Nutrition yesterday—it was a “can you believe how far it’s come?” moment for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement. Just three short years ago, those working on SUN could have fit into a small conference room. Yesterday’s meeting was a different story: Hundreds of senior representatives from governments and agencies from around the world came together at the UN to inspire and be inspired by a movement to tackle undernutrition. How things have changed in such a short period of time!
One year has passed since the launch of the SUN movement at the 1000 Days: Change a Life, Change the Future event, which the United States and Ireland co-hosted during the 2010 UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals. At yesterday’s event, speakers highlighted the historic opportunity to tackle undernutrition together—countries, civil society, research institutions, the private sector, and donor partners—unified under a consensus framework for action. The participation of the presidents of the United Republic of Tanzania and Nepal demonstrated the political will and leadership of countries.
This next year will be a critical test of the ability of the SUN movement to keep the momentum going. As Kathy Spahn, president of Helen Keller International (HKI), said, quoting HKI’s founder: Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
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