This document outlines four breakout group sessions that will take place at a conference on sustaining political commitments to scaling up nutrition. Each breakout group will focus on a different topic: 1) capacity development for scaling up nutrition interventions, 2) best practices for scaling up nutrition-specific interventions, 3) best practices for nutrition-sensitive development across sectors, and 4) the role of civil society in advocacy and monitoring progress. The document provides details on the objectives, facilitators, and discussion questions for each breakout group session. The sessions aim to generate recommendations on advancing scaling up nutrition efforts over the next 1000 days.

1. Sustaining Political Commitments to Scaling Up Nutrition
June 10, 2013
BREAKOUT GROUPS
On Monday June 10th
from 3:15-5:00 PM participants will have the opportunity to participate in one of
the four Breakout Groups described below. These will be interactive discussions intended to generate
recommendations on a designated topic for the next 1000 days. Recommendations will be included in
a Civil Society statement for collective use for advocacy. Results from discussions from across the
breakout groups also will be compiled into an event report summary that participants may use for
advocacy and planning. In order to balance out participation across groups, please select your top two
choices by June 4th
and you will be notified by e-mail which Breakout Group to participate in during
the afternoon of June 10th.
1. Capacity Development
Capacity development has been identified as a need and challenge in SUN countries. The sustainability
of efforts to scale up nutrition interventions and programming will require increased in-country capacity
at multiple levels and across sectors. This breakout session will (1) provide a brief background on
challenges and capacity development needs in SUN countries, (2) discuss what donor support and civil
society investments are needed to strengthen human capacity for scaling up nutrition across sectors,
particularly in light of the existing national nutrition strategies, (3) develop some consensus around
short and longer-term capacity development strategies for SUN countries, and (4) promote/facilitate an
interest group to develop country-level progress around capacity development. This session will include
a short presentation providing an overview of capacity development issues and objectives for the
session. Those with expertise in capacity building then will be invited to speak about tools they have
developed on workforce profiles and human resource management. There will be an opportunity for
discussion and time in small groups to arrive at practical recommendations for action. Facilitators: &
Manisha Tharaney, SPRING & Paul Amuna, African Nutrition Society, University of Greenwich;
Rapporteur: Anu Narayan, SPRING
 How well equipped is the nutrition workforce in countries to accomplish stated goals?
 What is the current level of partnership working within the international NGO community and
other sectors to build capacity for SUN (at country level)?
 What can practically be achieved in the next 1000 days? What is the longer-term vision?
2. Best practices – Nutrition-Specific Interventions
This breakout group will provide an opportunity to learn about the challenges and successes of scaling
up nutrition-specific interventions at the country level. We will explore best practices and innovative
approaches to improving nutrition at scale including examples of effective social and behavior change
communication and cross-sector collaboration. The session will begin with a short panel discussion with
experts in the field including one programmatic expert who works on nutrition at scale globally and two
SUN country representatives who can draw lessons learned from their own efforts to scale up nutrition.
Discussion will follow based on participants’ experiences and insights. The goal of this session is to
identify a set of recommendations for scaling up nutrition-specific interventions over the next 1000
days. Facilitators: Karin Lapping, Save the Children & Francis Zotor, African Nutrition Society;
Rapporteur: Megan Deitchler, FANTA III

2.  Which interventions have been able to be scaled up?
 What barriers remain to effective scale up of the nutrition-specific interventions?
 How can the role of maternal nutrition be enhanced in the next 1000 days?
3. Best Practices – Nutrition-Sensitive Development
The work of many sectors is important to effectively prevent malnutrition, given its multiple causes.
Agriculture, water and sanitation, education, health, social protection, and other sectors all have unique
and critical roles. This session will discuss how interventions from various sectors can be designed to be
‘nutrition sensitive’ through a deliberate planning process, such as ensuring that the nutritionally
vulnerable are included in the intervention area, including nutrition promotion, addressing gender
dynamics, ensuring pregnant and lactating women have access to time and resources for proper care of
themselves and their children. Through lightning presentations, conversation, and small group
discussions, this session will explore issues such as (1) how nutrition sensitive approaches are being
planned and implemented in SUN countries, (2) how interventions can be made nutrition-sensitive, (3)
how policy can support various sectors to incentivize actions beneficial for nutrition. The session will
generate recommendations that build on the experiences of participants and other available evidence.
Facilitator: Charlotte Dufour, FAO; Rapporteur: Anna Herforth, Independent Consultant
 How can interventions in various sectors be made to be nutrition-sensitive?
 What are some examples from SUN countries where multisectoral nutrition policies
are emerging, and where programming has been designed to be nutrition-sensitive?
 What is needed to enable multisectoral work for nutrition?
4. Civil Society’s Role in Advocacy & Monitoring Progress at National and Global Levels
Countries are expected to put in place their own monitoring and evaluation (M&E) frameworks based
on costed national nutrition plans. In this session, we will look at what the new SUN M&E Framework
means for the SUN Civil Society Network at national level, particularly as it relates to how country level
networks and alliances could be interacting with others in support of SUN processes. We will discuss
what type of tracking and monitoring the country level Civil Society Alliances (CSAs) could be doing in
order to ensure that progress is being advocated for and monitored. High-level advocacy for nutrition
has been effective at global and national levels resulting in greater commitments for nutrition. Multiple
indices are emerging to assist with global and national-level monitoring of these nutrition commitments
and subsequent action. This session will include a short presentation on the new SUN M&E framework
and various tools and processes in use for monitoring progress. There will be small group discussions to
generate recommendations on how to facilitate both monitoring and advocacy at the national level. We
will identify key barriers and challenges for local civil society and how donors and others can support
them in M&E and advocacy. We will return to plenary discussion for the last 30 - 40 minutes where all
participants will be invited to share their views and insights. Facilitators: Connell Foley, Concern
Worldwide & Buba Khan, ActionAid The Gambia; Rapporteur: Lisa Bos, World Vision
 What are the challenges of monitoring and tracking progress at national level? At global level?
 How can CSOs effectively monitor progress on SUN costed plans?
 What kinds of advocacy are most effective in ensuring that plans are effectively implemented in-
country?