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The UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN) is the food and nutrition policy harmonization forum of the United Nations.

The mandate of the UNSCN is to promote cooperation among UN agencies and partner organizations in support of community, national, regional, and international efforts to end malnutrition in all of its forms in this generation. It will do this by refining the direction, increasing the scale and strengthening the coherence and impact of actions against malnutrition world wide, and raise awareness of nutrition problems and mobilize commitment to solve them at global, regional and national levels.

Food and nutrition policy harmonization takes place through the UNSCN Steering Committee which meets on a monthly basis by telephone conference. Lead by the UNSCN Chair and consisting of leading nutrition staff members from the UN agencies and representatives from the Bilateral and NGO/CSO constituencies, the Steering Committee guides and monitors the implementation of the Action Plan in the context of the Strategic Framework.

The UNSCN network harmonize their food and nutrition policies during the annual UNSCN Sessions, during other meetings on a case-by-case basis, in the thematic Working Groups and the cross-cutting Task Forces. The UNSCN Sessions are typically attended by some 300-400 participants. The past ten UNSCN Sessions have seen participation of not less than 26 UN agencies and development banks, 51 Bilateral Partners and more than 150 NGOs plus a wide range of academic institutions and other civil society actors. Special efforts are made to ensure a reasonable balance of participants from low income countries.

The work of the UNSCN is based on the principle of consensus-building and inclusiveness. Typical products of the UNSCN Sessions are broad agreements or statements.

The UNSCN Strategic Framework and Action Plan 2006-2010 outlines five key activity areas: advocacy, communication and partnerships building; assessment, monitoring and evaluation; development of integrated approaches; mainstreaming human rights; and, identifying key scientific and operational gaps.

As part of its advocacy and communication mandate, the UNSCN is producing and disseminating a series of publications, including UNSCN News, Nutrition Information in Crisis Situations (NICS), Reports on the World Nutrition Situation and Nutrition Policy Papers. These publications are reaching some 10,000 nutrition practitioners, programme managers and development workers around the world. The UNSCN website gets about a million hits a year. A central feature on this new website is the UNSCN “One-Stop-Shop” Food and Nutrition Resource Portal, which will provide an online library of resources in food and nutrition. As part of its assessment and monitoring mandate, the UNSCN reports on nutrition in emergencies in its NICS reports and database, and on the global nutrition situation in its flagship publication the Reports on the World Nutrition Situation. The thematicUN SCN Working Groups are identifying key scientific and operation gaps are. Some of the important contributions of the UNSCN Working Groups throughout time are described on their webpages.

Read more about the UNSCN mandate and the UNSCN activities.

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