Message from David Nabarro, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Food Security and Nutrition
Over 1 billion people in the world today are under-nourished. Millions of children every year die because of a lack adequate nutritious food. 171 million children under 5 years old are stunted, 104 million underweight and 55 million are wasted. We know what needs to be done to prevent this and we know how.
Investing in nutrition between pregnancy and a child’s second birthday saves lives. It prevents long term and irreversible impact on intellectual, physical and social development. It makes economic sense, increasing GDP in developing countries by 2-3%, reducing the burden on health care systems, increasing educational achievement and improving prosperity. It is a human right and the basis for economic, social and human development.
In 2010 over 100 organizations including Governments, civil society, the private sector, research institutions and the United Nations system committed to work together to fight hunger and under-nutrition, developing a Framework to Scale Up Nutrition and a Road Map providing the principles and direction for increased action.
SUN is not a new institution, initiative or financial mechanism. Instead it is a movement that brings organizations together to support national plans to scale up nutrition. It helps ensure that financial and technical resources are accessible, coordinated, predictable and ready to go to scale.
The main investors in SUN are national governments themselves. They are prioritizing food and nutrition security in their national programmes through nutrition and gender sensitive development that has nutritional outcomes as a key goal of their development policies in sectors such as agriculture, health, social protection and education. They are also investing in direct nutrition interventions such as promoting ante-natal nutrition, breast feeding, food fortification and complementary feeding.
The SUN movement is for all countries whose populations experience under-nutrition and for all stakeholders committed to providing support.
- David Nabarro