Blog
Visualising malnutrition in the time of COVID-19
The current COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in its reach—affecting countries across the globe in just a few short months. The necessary measures to curb the spread have caused disruptions to…
Experience in tracking N4G commitments
The Global Nutrition Report (GNR), hosted by Development Initiatives (DI) and funded by the UK’s Department for International Development and other donors, is an annual report card on the world’s…
Technical assistance takeaways from the 2019 SUN Global Gathering
The 2019 SUN Global Gathering in Kathmandu, Nepal—which took place from 4 to 7 November—highlighted a growing interest in the role that technical assistance (TA) can play to support SUN…

Experiencing the SUN Global Gathering: A perspective from the MQSUN+ Lead for SUN Technical Assistance
- December 6, 2019
- Michelle Martinez
- Blog
The flagship event for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement—the SUN Global Gathering—is a multi-day convening of SUN Focal Points as well as other government representatives, international non-governmental organisations, donors…
Fostering urban nutrition through a ‘smart city’ partnership: a perspective from the Executive Director of the Food Foundation
The Birmingham India Nutrition Initiative (BINDI) is a learning partnership between Birmingham, UK and Pune, India aimed at developing smart policies which support nutritional impact. With support from Tata Trusts,…
Strengthening functional capacity in action: Enhancing the skills of country Focal Points to support multisectoral nutrition efforts
- September 13, 2019
- Michelle Martinez
- Blog
Since 2017, Maximising the Quality of Scaling Up Nutrition Plus (MQSUN+), in collaboration with the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Secretariat (SMS), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and…
Analysing national budgets for nutrition: The role of technical assistance to build country capacity for nutrition financing
- August 20, 2019
- Michelle Martinez
- Blog
Conducting a budget analysis allows a country to take stock of their nutrition financing at the national level, which can help them more effectively plan for the utilisation of existing…
Looking at nutrition financing in practice: a perspective from MQSUN+’s costing consultant for Francophone African countries
Since 2012, Maximising the Quality of Scaling Up Nutrition (MQSUN) and now MQSUN+ has provided technical assistance (TA) to over a dozen Francophone Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) countries—focused primarily on…
‘Taking the temperature’ of gender consideration in national nutrition planning to maximise efforts to improve nutrition for all
Nutritional status can be strongly impacted by gender. Socially-constructed gender roles, in conjunction with biological differences in sex and age, influence nutritional needs and status of individuals, households, communities and…
Moving beyond a theory of change—mapping assumptions toward nutrition impact (part 1)
When looking at the impact of global health investments, we often want to count the number of beneficiaries, percent reduction in disease prevalence or statistically significant associations between an intervention…