The Scaling Up Nutrition Movement hosted its Global Gathering on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York over two days 23 – 24 September.
On Monday 23 September, during the opening of the Global Gathering of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, civil society representatives from the Lead Group read a joint statement to reaffirm the Civil Society Network’s commitment “to work together to support, encourage and enable the implementation of robust, successful, equitable and sustainable actions and mobilise necessary resources to scale up nutrition”. Mary Robinson, President, Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice is a signatory to the statement and the event was attended by Dr Tara Shine, Head of Research and Development.
This statement, read out by Marie-Pierre Allié, President, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF); Tom Arnold, Special Representative for Hunger, Concern Worldwide; Sir Faizle Hasan Abed, Founder and Chair of BRAC; and Jay Naidoo Chair of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Partnership Council of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) declares that “Malnutrition is a result of the failure to realise people’s basic human rights and addressing it is a matter of justice”.
The statement also emphasises the importance of placing people at the centre of policy making and solutions – “empowering people and communities and giving them platforms to discuss their realities and solutions to under nutrition enables them to be convincing advocates for the policy solutions required”.
The issues of nutrition justice and climate justice were highlighted by several members of the Lead Group during interventions, including Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, CEO, NEPAD, and Nahas Gideon Angula, Former Prime Minisiter, Minister of Defence, Namibia.
Dr Mayaki said that “nutrition is linked to social justice”. Minister Angula said he was inspired by the two linked issues of climate justice and nutrition justice, “Nutrition justice implies that our movement is a social justice movement. We want our children to survive. We want their mothers to survive. We want our children to be well and healthy so that they can fulfil their promise”.
The Minister went on to say that climate justice is very relevant to Namibia, a country frequented by drought, “It is appropriate to link climate to food security so that we recognise that nature is also to be dealt with”.
The SUN Movement hosted its Global Gathering on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York over two days 23 – 24 September.
This year’s Gathering sought to enhance the Movement’s impact by demonstrating results in SUN countries; enabling countries to seek solutions to help them scale up nutrition; bolstering mutual accountability within the Movement; and envisioning the Movement beyond 2015.
Related Links:
Our Work: Food and Nutrition Security
Our Work: Hunger ● Nutrition ● Climate Justice
Foundation activities in New York during the United Nations General Assembly 2013