Interview with the Dr. Hjordis Ogendo, Head of Social Affairs and Environment, EU Delegation in Kenya and SUN Donor Convenor

School lunches are fortified with 15 essential vitamins and minerals in Nairobi, Kenya © Challiss McDonough, WFP

Background

Kenya was one of the first countries to sign up to the SUN Movement in November 2012 and the European Union Delegation in Kenya agreed to be the SUN Donor Network convenor in 2013. Around this time, Hjordis arrived in Kenya as the Head of Social Affairs and Environment and volunteered to take on the task of facilitating the SUN Donor Network.

She has been in the post for three years and will soon step down after handing over her role to anther Donor Convenor. NEX editor Carmel Dolan interviewed Hjordis to get some insights into her experiences of this role.

1. How does the Donor Network function and are there specific terms of reference or guidance documents?

When we started, nobody really knew what signing up to the SUN Movement meant. We started mainly from scratch and had to think through how to go about it. I felt that we were largely alone as a Donor Network (DN) in Kenya and didn’t know how it was for other DNs being established in other countries. There was a generic terms of reference developed by the SUN Movement Secretariat (based in Geneva) which we used and adapted to set out specific roles and responsibilities in the Kenya context. The Kenya DN was approved and adopted in late 2014.

2. How much work is involved for you in this role?

The DN-specific work requires about two days per month of time and I was fortunate to be able to share this workload with a DFID-funded consultant, who worked full time for one and a half years supporting the DN. Without this support, we would not have got to where we are today. This additional support has proved vital, as facilitating the DN is on top of my main European Union Delegation role in Kenya.

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The Emergency Nutrition Network (ENN) and support to the SUN Movement

ENN is a UK registered charity which was set up to improve practice and strengthen the institutional memory of agencies involved in the emergency food and nutrition sectors. ENN focuses on communities in crisis, typically humanitarian emergencies. ENN enables nutrition networking and learning to build the evidence base for nutrition programming in three ways:

• Field Exchange (FEX), an online and print publication on nutrition and food security in emergencies and high burden contexts. Field Exchange is printed three times per year.
• Nutrition Exchange (NEX), is an online publication of short, easy to read articles on nutrition programme experiences and learning. Nutrition is summarised information from the flagship publication, Field Exchange.
• en-net, a free and open resource that helps practitioners access technical advice for operational challenges through the online forum. A specific area for SUN en-net was launched in 2015. Visit SUN en-net ►

ENN is part of the DFID funded Technical Assistance for Nutrition (TAN) programme under which ENN is providing knowledge management services to the SUN Movement in Phase Two (2016-2020). ENN is focused on capturing, curating and disseminating knowledge and learning about nutrition scale up with a focus on high burden and fragile and conflict affected states. Three regional specialists and a Knowledge Management Coordinator are working with country level SUN actors (government, UN, donors, civil society, business and academia) to capture what is being learnt about the scale up of nutrition specific and sensitive activities.