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SUN Movement Coordinator Announcement

Dear colleagues, friends, and partners, This year marks the completion of my third term as the SUN Movement Coordinator. Since I joined you in 2016, I have had the remarkable opportunity to support our SUN Countries as you’ve paved the way for nutrition to be…

May 17, 2022 - Last update: January 9, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

Dear colleagues, friends, and partners,

This year marks the completion of my third term as the SUN Movement Coordinator.

Since I joined you in 2016, I have had the remarkable opportunity to support our SUN Countries as you’ve paved the way for nutrition to be central to sustainable development.

Today I write to inform you, with a hope-filled heart, that I will not seek another term as SUN Movement Coordinator.  I have shared this decision with the UN Secretary-General, our soon-to-be confirmed Lead Group Chair and Executive Committee Co-Chairs.  As requested by the Lead Group Chair, I am committed to remain in the role of Coordinator until my successor joins, ensuring a seamless transition. UNICEF will be leading the recruitment for my successor, which will shortly be underway.

Serving the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement is a tremendous privilege.  I have watched the Movement grow, in confidence and in ownership.  Together we have faced very challenging moments, particularly in recent years. The immediate and unfolding implications of the pandemic, growing climate-driven crises and horrific wars and conflicts threaten so much of the progress we have achieved for nutrition.  But what inspires me most is the response from SUN Countries and other members to each challenge – extraordinary strength, courage, and drive to continue the commitment to end malnutrition in all its forms.

I will be forever humbled by this experience.

We are in the third phase of the SUN Movement, and we are now stronger than ever.  65 SUN Countries and 4 Indian States lead the charge, including through involvement in other systemic approaches. With an overwhelming number of commitments made at both the Nutrition for Growth Summit and Food Systems Summit, we see increasingly sophisticated country-driven, multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral approaches taking hold, including nutrition as an investment in human potential. In many countries, our SUN Movement is inspiring the development and implementation of the national Food Systems Pathways.

SUN now has a refreshed Executive Committee with stronger country representation, and stakeholder and independent expertise that bolsters the Executive Committee’s capacity to provide guidance and support where most requested by SUN Countries.  We will soon have a new Lead Group Chair, Catherine Russell, the Executive Director of UNICEF. She is very committed to lead on nutrition including through a strong emphasis on children, girls, and women.  We are completing the transformation of the SUN Movement Secretariat who will work side-by-side with the four SUN Networks as one Global Support System aligned behind our SUN Countries.

Let us continue to further strengthen ‘the power of WE’, to ensure that we achieve together what none of us can do alone – to implement a country-owned Movement for nutrition, of which we can all be incredibly proud and that leaves no one behind.

 

My most sincere and warm regards,

Gerda Verburg

SUN Movement Coordinator

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