How do countries join

The SUN Movement supports country-led efforts to improve nutrition and advocates for aligned efforts. Committed countries are at the core of the SUN Movement and abide by the SUN Movement Principles of Engagement. Any country that is developing, updating or implementing policies, strategies and plans of action to scale up nutrition can participate in the SUN Movement.

Countries that join the SUN Movement are committed to:

  • Ensuring that programmes in all sectors of government are sensitive to nutrition
  • Increasing coverage of proven interventions that improve nutrition during the 1,000 day period between a mother’s pregnancy and her child’s second birthday

SUN Countries commit to aligning efforts nationally to work towards:

  • Developing or revising national policies, strategies and plans to scale up nutrition that include both nutrition-specific interventions as well as nutrition-sensitive development strategies.
  • Forming or strengthening multi-stakeholder platforms that include relevant line ministries – across agriculture, health, education, social welfare, women’s affairs and local government – and key partners including civil society, UN agencies, donors, the technical and research community, parliamentarians, media and business. Scaling Up Nutrition In Practice Issue 1 details various structures in place in six SUN Countries.
  • Undertaking regular stocktaking of in-country and partner capabilities in nutrition to clearly identify capacity gaps and set priorities for resource mobilisation. Increasing numbers of SUN countries are carefully looking at the costing of specific nutrition interventions and nutrition sensitive strategies as the starting point resource mobilisation.

SUN Countries nominate SUN Government Focal Points and SUN Donor Convernors:

  • A high-level SUN Government Focal Point is responsible for ensuring that the country’s efforts engage the whole of government and for coordinating external support. In some countries, there is a both a technical and a political SUN Government Focal Point.
  • A SUN Donor Convenor works to bring the donor community together and encourage the alignment of financial and technical assistance to national plans.

Countries can signal their intention of scaling up nutrition and joining the SUN Movement by sending a letter of commitment from a High-Level Government official to the Coordinator of the SUN Movement.