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4th June: In a recorded statement marking the launch of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s flagship annual publication The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA),Graziano da Silva said that although the world has registered some progress on hunger, one form of malnutrition, there was still “a long way ahead”.

In the run up to the Nutrition for Growth: Beating Hunger through Business and Science meeting on the 8th June, SUN Civil Society Alliances have led campaign efforts in Bangladesh, Ghana, Nepal, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. These actions highlighted to political leaders the importance of investing in nutrition, and were part of efforts happening all around the world as part of the Global Day of Action.

The Zambian CSO-SUN Alliance held a ‘Nutrition for Development Concert’ on June 8th in the Barclays Sports Complex in Lusaka. The event was a huge success and as many as 1,000 people were estimated to attend.

The Uganda Civil Society Coalition on Scaling Up Nutrition (UCCO-SUN) organised several events as contributions towards the Global Day of Action Activities. On 6 June, it organised several policy-makers to come together to discuss important issues around nutrition in Uganda.

Tanzania’s SUN civil society coalition, PANITA, recently held a huge event with 2600 children all holding spinning flowers. The event was also attended by young reporters, officials, youth council members, journalists and mass public.

The SUN Movement in Nepal, led by the Nepal Nutrition Foundation (NNF) recently organized an interaction meeting in Kathmandu, involving nutritionists, medical doctors, and other professionals.

The CSOs forum on Scaling Up Nutrition in Ghana held a high-level and extremely well-attended policy debate at the British Council in Accra, Ghana on 5th June.

The Civil Society Alliance for Scaling Up Nutrition, Bangladesh, organised a seminar on exploring the opportunities for scaling up nutrition in Bangladesh on Tuesday 4th June just days before the 8th June “Nutrition for Growth: Beating Hunger through Business and Science” Summit in London.

Two years on from civil society’s gathering to build commitment for the 1,000 Days Call to Action and just two days after the Nutrition for Growth event in London, civil society from across the globe came together in Washington DC to solidify ways to ‘Sustaining Political Commitment to Scaling Up Nutrition’. On 10th June, Bread for the World and Concern Worldwide opened a day-long event to secure a recommitment from a broad base of supporters to ‘the next 1,000s days’.

On 8th June, world leaders including SUN countries came together to sign a global compact that will prevent at least 20 million children from being stunted and save at least 1.7 million lives by 2020. The Global Nutrition for Growth Compact was endorsed by 90 stakeholders, including development partners, businesses, scientific and civil society groups. This event was preceded by the launch of a new Series of papers by The Lancet containing the strongest evidence to date that urgent progress on nutrition can and must take place.

6th June marked the opening of a new chapter in nutrition. Two days before leaders from across the globe meet in London to share their commitments for radical action at the Nutrition for Growth high level event , The Lancet published a new Series of papers containing the strongest evidence to date that urgent progress on nutrition can and must take place.

Read the May 2013 Update featuring news on progress made in SUN countries.

During the week of 7 June the SUN Country Level Alliances take part in The Global Day of Action, and 11 June, the SUN Civil Society Network holds its Inaugural Meeting in Washington DC.

A new report, Food for Thought, published by Save the Children UK on 28 May 2013 finds that missing out on a nutritious diet can severely damage a child’s ability to read and write simple sentences and answer basic maths questions correctly. The report finds that, on average, these children are 20% less literate than their peers – regardless of the amount and quality of schooling the child receives.