On 16 May, the President of Tanzania and SUN Lead Group Member, H.E. Dr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete launched a nationwide nutrition sensitization campaign – the Presidential Call for Action on Nutrition. The campaign launch took place in Dar es Salaam with a large audience including government leaders at various levels.

With the support of Zimbabwe’s Food and Nutrition Council, a high level forum was held in Harare on 16 May to launch the country’s Food and Nutrition Security Policy. The event was attended by representatives from key sectors, diplomats, NGOs, Chiefs, farmers and private sector.

Two new nutrition reports explore the role of smallholder agriculture in improving nutrition and donor financing for nutrition.

Mobilizing domestic and global resources is critical to ensuring that the cross-sector coordination, planning and implementation at the core of the SUN Movement can be fully realized. An analysis of 16 SUN country plans has been undertaken to better understand national planning and investment priorities, and to help mobilise additional resources.

Zambia’s Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition Alliance (CSO-SUN Alliance) held a Nutrition Champions meeting with Members of Parliament on 1 May to increase political commitment to address malnutrition.

The next few months in the run- up to the MDG Special Event in September present a unique opportunity to position food and nutrition security as central to the post-2015 agenda and to convert current high-level commitment into bold global goals and targets. The purpose of this Joint Statement is to deliver a clear and unified message to high-level decision-makers about the importance of food and nutrition security in the post-2015 development framework.

Read the April 2013 Update featuring news on progress made in SUN countries.

On 15 April 2013 the Government of Pakistan signaled their commitment to scaling up nutrition. Pakistan sees adequate nutrition as a key ingredient for overall development and the government has agreed with donors and developments partners to develop federal and provincial nutrition plans of action.

[WORLD FOOD PROGRAM] 25 April 2013- The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) and the government of Indonesia recently held a two-day conference in Kupang aimed to spearhead the drive for improved nutrition across the country. The conference brought together national, provincial and district officials, the private sector, local communities, NGOs and UN agencies specializing in nutrition.