SUN Movement Lead Group members raise their voices at the global level for SUN Countries and for nutrition action

December 12, 2022 - Last update: June 8, 2023

Members of the recently appointed Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Lead Group are already engaging at the global level in support of SUN Countries and nutrition action, demonstrating their shared commitment to bring nutrition to everyone, everywhere.

Appointed in September 2022 until December 2024 by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, the 22-member SUN Lead Group includes notable global leaders representing government, civil society, the private sector, finance institutions, youth groups and other key stakeholder groups.

The role of the Lead Group, which is chaired by UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, is to guide the strategic direction of the SUN Movement while driving political momentum and global recognition of nutrition’s catalytic power to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Acting as high-level ambassadors for the SUN Movement, Lead Group members are also responsible for raising their voices in key fora to sustain momentum towards creating a world free of malnutrition, in all its forms, by 2030.

Since their inaugural annual meeting on 21 September, held in New York City in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, SUN Lead Group members have already stepped up to demonstrate their support on key nutrition issues.

During their meeting, SUN Lead Group members examined how external factors, such as the global food and nutrition crisis, the COVID-19 response and recovery, climate shocks, humanitarian crises and famine, are shaping SUN countries’ pathways to scaling up nutrition and the required responses.

At the meeting, SUN Lead Group members made strong commitments and delivered a powerful series of video statements linking nutrition to key health, climate, youth, policy and regional issues – designed to drive broad engagement in support of SUN Countries and achievement of the nutrition targets they have set for themselves.

This was followed by a strong SUN Lead Group Statement of Action on the nutrition-climate nexus delivered on the eve of the 2022 Global Climate Conference held in Egypt in November. In this statement, the members reaffirmed their commitment to leveraging their collective and individual influence to advocate for increased financial and technical support to accelerate the transformation towards sustainable food systems in SUN countries. Many SUN Lead Group members also gave their voices to a SUN-led nutrition-climate social media campaign with strong individual statements.

During the Global Climate Conference itself, Lead Group members advocated for nutrition and food systems to be included as part of the formal United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process and for systemic change towards sustainable food systems that produce healthy and nutritious food and provide decent incomes for those involved.

While participating in numerous side events and high-level discussions, SUN Lead Group members further highlighted the need to support countries in accessing climate funding to increase the resilience of their food systems to climate change. They also made the case for capacity strengthening to be provided to countries to help them develop effective business cases for investment in joint nutrition/food systems/climate action programming.

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