Two exciting moments for the SUN Civil Society Network in June

Week of June 7: SUN Country Level Alliances take part in The Global Day of Action to promote nutrition.

In the run up to the Nutrition for Growth: Beating Hunger through Business and Science meeting on the 8th June, there’s not only a huge campaign effort in the UK, but also across the world. From Australia to Zambia people are campaigning – holding round tables with politicians, public rallies, concerts anddebates – all with the aim of asking their own national governments to do what’s necessary to tackle hunger. All this is taking place the day before the Nutrition for Growth meeting on the 7th June.

Scaling up Nutrition coalitions are leading campaign efforts in Bangladesh, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

Amongst the exciting events is a public concert in Zambia, which the Zambia CSO-SUN Alliance is organizing at the Barclays Sports Complex in Lusaka on 8th June. In Tanzania, the SUN coalition, PANITA, is organizing an event in Shinyanga at which 2600 children are making and holding papers flowers that represent their call to end hunger. These SUN actions go alongside others happening around the world – in 17 countries overall. For example in India, Save the Children, World Vision, and 9 is Mine are hosting a public concert event at India Gate in Delhi.

Ministers and politicians are being invited to make new commitments to tackling hunger, in front of crowds of citizens and journalists. You’ll be able to watch these events by following the #Food4All on social media.

View additional information on these activities led by SUN CS platforms, and other events here.

If you want to show your support anywhere in the world outside of the UK – tweet a photo of you with your spinning flower and the name of your country with #Food4All and these photos and stories will be included here.

June 11: The SUN Civil Society Network holds its Inaugural Meeting in Washington DC.

In September 2010, the launch of the 1,000 Days Partnership coincided with that of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, a global effort to mobilize collective action on nutrition. Nine months later, in June 2011, Civil Society Organisations came together in an international meeting to help organise a voice for civil society on nutrition. This meeting spurred the establishment of civil society platforms and alliances in SUN countries.

Two years on, the launch of the Civil Society Network of the SUN movement represents another significant step forward, as these civil society country alliances forge links to advance nutrition at the national, regional and international level. Appropriately, the inaugural meeting of the Civil Society Network, will take place alongside the “Sustaining Political Commitments to Scaling Up Nutrition” meeting to launch the next ‘1,000 Days’ of action on nutrition.

So much has happened in the last 1000 days. The Scaling Up Nutrition Movement has picked up momentum as it has gained the support of governments and of the wider nutrition community around the world – 40 countries have now joined the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement. During the first half of 2013, a Steering Group has been working along with a small secretariat, hosted by Save the Children UK, to put in place the foundations and relationships to make the Civil Society Network successful.

The Inaugural Meeting will build on the proceedings and outcomes of the next 1,000 Days “Call to Action” event, and will focus in particular on how the SUN Civil Society Network can operate to support the agreed Call to Action. It will agree and publicise a mission statement setting out the CSN’s aims and objectives; serve to unite and promote the Civil Society Network, and identify key priority areas for Civil Society Network focus in the coming year.

For more information on this event, please contact sun.csnetwork@savethechildren.org.uk

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