GLOBAL – The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has appointed Afshan Khan, as Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement.
Khan, a Canadian national, succeeds Gerda Verburg of the Netherlands who held the position for 7 years.
The SUN Movement is a country-driven initiative led by 65 countries and four Indian states united in their mission to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030.
It is founded on a multi-stakeholder and multisectoral approach that harnesses the broad capacities of key players working to bring healthy nutrition to everyone, everywhere.
It is facilitated by the SUN Movement Secretariat and four SUN Networks – the SUN Civil Society Network, SUN Business Network, SUN Donor Network and UN Nutrition.
Khan will lead the SUN Movement Secretariat, as well as coordinate the network of SUN Government Focal Points, the Movement’s stakeholders and supporters.
She joined the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Mozambique in 1989 and is currently serving as Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
She has previously served as Director of Emergency Programmes, Director of Public-Sector Alliances and Resource Mobilization, Associate Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, and the UNICEF Representative in Jamaica.
In these positions, she has undertaken various assignments in Kenya, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia.
She has also worked for the Women for Women International organisation where she was the president and CEO for a year and eleven months.
She ascends to the position at a critical time when the total number of undernourished people has started to rise after decades of falling largely due to the convergence of multiple factors including multiple conflicts, the covid-19 pandemic, drought, and the Ukraine-Russian war.
In 2020, the number of undernourished people rose to a record 768 million from a low of 606.9 million people in 2014, according to Our World in Data.
Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected region with rates rising by several percentage points in recent years. Middle East & North Africa has also seen some increases.
Ms Khan has a bachelor of arts in political science and government from McGill University and a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University.
She has broad expertise stemming from assignments with the Inter-Agency Standing Committee for Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva, the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and the United Nations Development Group.
The UN intends to leverage her proficiency in the field to ensure the execution of the SUN strategy at the global level by building partnerships, and galvanizing engagement and commitment to end malnutrition in all its forms.
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