Monrovia – The United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement, Ms. Gerda Verburg, as part of an official visit, has arrived in Liberia to meet with stakeholders to boost food security.
While in the country, the senior UN official is expected to meet with an array of senior government officials including President George M. Weah, Ministers of Health, Agriculture, Finance and Development Planning as well as the United Nations and nutrition leaders in the country.
According to a release, the meeting is part of her efforts to highlight the importance of investing in good nutrition for human and economic sustainable development.
The release also notes that Ms. Verburg will also underscore the importance of a whole of government approach to nutrition and call for Liberia’s leadership as a member country of the SUN Movement.
During her three-day official visit, Ms. Gerda Verburg is also expected to inspire a new way of working collaboratively across government sectors by amplifying the need for multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder collaboration.
Such an approach to improving people’s nutrition, the release said will catalyze progress toward Liberia’s national development ambitions and all 17 of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The UN Assistant Secretary-General and SUN Coordinator’s visit to Liberia now is significant as the country has been a member of the SUN Movement since 3rd February 2014.
The SUN or Scaling Up Nutrition is led by 60-member countries, and supported by thousands of stakeholders from civil society, private sector, United Nations agencies, donors and academia in a collective effort to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030. It has mobilized an unprecedented political will to tackle undernutrition and improve the nutritional status of everyone, everywhere.
According to the latest (2018) Liberia Comprehensive Food Security and Nutrition Survey, there has been no significant progress in reducing stunting (impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition) over the last 10 years.
The release furthered that stunting continues to affect around one-third of children under five years, with the average national prevalence rates of stunting (or too short for age) being 36 percent in 2008, 35.6 percent in 2012, and 35.5 percent in 2018.
“As a SUN country, Liberia is committed to reducing malnutrition through multi-sectoral strategies that address the immediate and underlying causes of malnutrition. Liberia is also obligated to meeting the nutrition targets set at national, regional and international (SDGs) level,” the release noted.
Ms. Gerda Verburg works with the 60 country governments that lead the SUN Movement to strengthen political will to end malnutrition in all its forms and ensure all citizens can realize their right to good food and nutrition.
Before this, Ms. Verburg served as Chair of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), a multi-stakeholder committee where governments, civil societies, private sectors, research institutions and others address food and nutrition issues. She previously served as the Minister for Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality for the Netherlands.