The SUN Alliance in Rwanda was created in 2014 to bring together civil society organizations working on nutrition in the country. It currently has 79 members from local and international non-profits and academia. The alliance faces challenges like limited resources, misunderstandings about nutrition, and insufficient coordination between actors. Key lessons learned include the importance of political commitment to end malnutrition and multi-sector collaboration. The alliance's achievements include awareness campaigns, stakeholder mapping, advocacy efforts, and resource mobilization. It calls for increased budget allocation, appointing qualified nutritionists, and strengthening nutrition education.

1. SUN Civil Society Efforts | October 2016 1
SCALING UP NUTRITION (SUN) ALLIANCE RWADA:

2. SUN Alliance creation
 SUN Alliance in Rwanda creation
• In 2014, SUN Alliance was created, bringing together many of the
CSOs working on nutrition in the country. To date, SUN Alliance
includes 79 civil society members from both local and international
CSOs and academia, all actively engaged in scaling up nutrition at
country level, whether through programmes directly focusing on
nutrition (known as ‘nutrition-specific’ programmes) or programmes
that revolve around other sectors but that integrate nutrition aspects
(known as “nutrition sensitive” programmes).
SUN Civil Society Efforts | April 2016 2

3. Challenges
• Resources(human, finance, materials) especially at district level
• Misunderstanding on nutrition:
Lack of skills in how to access diversed diet
Cultural barriers
• Insufficient Coordination at all level:
Insufficient information sharing between different actors in nutrition
• Food access:
in poor households,
Climate change
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4. Lessons learnt through the work of SUN Alliance
• Importance of political will and commitment to eliminate malnutrition
• Collaboration between stakeholders at all levels
• Decentralization of programs towards combating malnutrition:
DPEM committees at district levels
• Involvement of all relevant Sectors in nutrition effort to eliminate
malnutrition:
Education, Agriculture,
Health, gender,Finance,desaster management
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5. Key achievement
• Awareness raising campaign on nutrition status in Rwanda(2015 and
still ongoing)
• Stakeholders and actions mapping(2015)
• Advocacy towards Policy makers(2016 and still in progress)
• Advocacy for improved multi-stakeholder coordination
• Resource mobilization in progress
• Learning route (ongoing)
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6. Call of action
• Increased allocation of budget to nutrition activities at National and
District level
• Appoint qualified Nutritionist in Health centers
• To include nutrition activities in District performance contracts up to
family level.
• Strengthen nutrition education and counseling for behavior change in
feeding, WASH and maternal child health.
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7. Thank you!
Photo: Adam Hinton/Save the Children