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April Our news team reports. It looks like the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) has no future, unless perhaps only nominally. The signs known to us indicate that its remaining staff and work will be laid off and set aside, or else will be absorbed into the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative. SUN in effect is a public-private partnership, whose policies focus on the reduction of food insecurity and the relief of undernutrition. The SCN's work has always been broader, and it retained its nature as a UN body.

Last month we asked for comments on this gloomy forecast. Association member Ted Greiner, who is chair of the SCN civil society organisation grouping, says: 'I'm pleased that you have maintained contact with the SCN Secretariat and are continuing your reporting of the situation. There has been virtually nothing relevant sent to me as Chair of the non-governmental/civil society constituency since the meeting last December in Rome' (which Association president Barrie Margetts attended and reported on in Update #20).

'The optimism emerging from that meeting seems to have been belied, sadly. I suspect that the forces referred to your analysis are too large. The SCN is merely a minor player in the much bigger act of replacing publicly accountable development funding institutions with privately controlled mechanisms for funding and control'.

He adds: 'I do however strongly disagree with the way your coverage criticises food fortification. Most of the healthy people in all but the poorest parts of the world benefit enormously at very low cost from fortification with iodine, iron, folic acid, vitamin D, often fluoride, and occasionally vitamin A. It is dangerous and misleading to make or repeat simple-minded anti-fortification statements. How about calling for and opening your pages to a debate about the pros and cons of food fortification? This could include the role of GAIN or other organisations but these issues should be dealt with separately'. [Ed – good idea].

He further says, with reference to our news coverage last month: 'Dambisa Moyo's book Dead Aid makes some provocative points about the impact of foreign aid on Africa. It would be interesting to read something more objective on how good the evidence is that development aid itself creates dependency and encourages corruption. I would not extend such arguments to East Asia, at least, where countries like South Korea have used foreign aid and even IMF loans well over the past few decades. South Korea became a member of the OECD Development Assistance Committee in late 2009. After itself receiving $13 billion in aid, it is now approaching an annual development assistance budget of $1 billion. See http://www.oecd.org/document/50/0,3343,en_2649_ 33721_44141618_1_1_1_1,00.html

Last month's coverage

We think that last month's coverage, allowing for the points Ted Greiner makes above, remain timely this month, and so we retain them here:

March. Our news team reports. Asking if anybody still cares about the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition, still in a state of crisis, is like asking if anybody still cares about the United Nations. Yes, we do. 'Please go on featuring the SCN' an informant within the UN system said to us. 'Please don't stop. Our world is watching'. In this last month the mood has shifted yet again. Energy to protect the SCN in anything like an authentic form seems to be draining away. On a larger stage 'the UN is steadily becoming part of a series of public-private partnerships now' said another informant. We await assurances from relevant UN executives, but this is now feeling like the end game.

The UN agencies on whose funds the SCN mainly depends have promised their 2011 dues but we understand that none has yet paid. Funds from some UN member states, notably Ireland, are keeping the SCN secretariat in place until June – just three months away. Around this time the salary of SCN executive secretary Denise Costa Coitinho Delmuè will need to be renewed, and it is not clear where the funds will come from. The term of office of Alexander Müller as SCN chair, who is not paid for this substantial position and who has a full-time position as a FAO assistant director-general, finishes at the end of this year, and it is not clear whether he wants to renew his term, or alternatively who would – or would want to – succeed him.

The SCN secretariat is currently engaged in supporting the multi-actor SUN ('Scaling Up Nutrition') initiative. This, together with the UN High Level Task Force on Food Security, is now focused on the world food price and availability crises, which are impeding progress towards achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals. Many feel that these and other initiatives, which involve many of the same busy UN executives, are making the SCN's more strategic work redundant or at least insignificant. The view of a number of sources collectively is as follows. Much of the work the SCN used to do is now done elsewhere. Some isn't, but there isn't the money or the will within the UN to resource this. Plus the SCN has enemies, because of its reputation for wanting to keep the private sector out of the picture. The agencies keep on saying they will keep the SCN going somehow, but if it does survive this will be mostly in name only. This is what we hear. We prefer signed responses and when from informed sources will publish them.

We have published a series of reports and updates on the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (the SCN) since late last October. See below. Here is some context.

The SCN is vital

The SCN is vitally important. Its first prime function is to harmonise policies and practices of relevant UN agencies, in our field – public health nutrition, and also food and nutrition policies and programmes. This is a different job from responding to food or nutrition crises. The second and linked prime function of the SCN is to deliberate on and work out policies designed to address malnutrition in all its forms, not just undernutrition and hunger. A third function is to address the underlying and basic social, economic and environmental causes of disease, health and well-being, inasmuch as these are related to nutrition and to food. If the SCN dies this work is likely to be sidelined, if not killed.

The SCN has always had a hard job to do. The so-called 'big four' UN agencies that collectively have provided most of the funds for the SCN, have different approaches.

Like its national equivalents, ministries of health, the World Health Organization (WHO), whose good work preparing for the UN Summit in September is summarised in another news item this month, broadly stays with the medical approach, and while being committed to public health necessarily also works with Big Pharma. Alternatively, like national ministries of agriculture, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO)while being committed to sustainable food systems, necessarily engages with Big Ag and Chem – the agribusiness and agrochemical industries. The general approaches of WHO and FAO are idifferent, and sometimes their public and private commitments clash, but both have an impressive record of agreeing to work together, for example on expert reports on nutrition policy. Both are influenced by transnational food and drink manufacturers and caterers, collectively known as Big Snack.

The other two of the 'big four', UNICEF and the World Food Programme (WPF), both mainly concerned with responding to undernutrition and food and nutrition emergencies, necessarily work with industry as well as with civil society organisations all the time. Their partners include some transnational and other big corporations whose products when consumed regularly are harmful to health, although UNICEF is careful in its relations with the baby formula industry.

Doubts about aid

There is also the very big issue of the impact of aid, notably that taking the form of money transfers and other 'top-down' approaches, on the ability of countries and communities to become sustainably self-sufficient. This is now discussed even vehemently inside and outside the UN system.

The great majority of policy-makers, of whom a well-known example is the US economist Jeffrey Sachs, are clear that aid to impoverished countries for the indefinite future is essential and needs to be boosted. A minority include the African economist Dambisa Moyo, named by Time magazine in 2009 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Her view follows that of her mentors Peter Bauer and William Easterly In the words of the Financial Times review of her recent book Dead Aid. Why Aid is Not Working, it is that 'Limitless development assistance to African governments has fostered dependency, encouraged corruption and ultimately perpetuated poor governance and poverty' and that foreign aid perpetuates the cycle of poverty and hinders economic growth in Africa.

Climate change

In the last ten years or so, the climate in which the SCN works has changed. Paradoxically, the main threat to the SCN has come from raised consciousness of the social, economic, environmental and other impacts of undernutrition, as well as its biological impacts on community and population health. As a result, all UN member states agreed its series of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, in response to recommendations made by a study group headed by Jeffrey Sachs. As well as being ambitious and for many countries unrealistic, the MDGs are criticised not so much for their phrasing, as for the definition and means of delivery of development – money. But in this century it is the MDGs that have gained the 'big mo' – political momentum.

In parallel, the popular and aptly named 'band aid' movements starting in the 1980s, in which rock stars and other celebrities raised substantial sums for aid, and thereby also raised public consciousness, augmented or some say interfered with work already being done by the UN, national governments, health professionals and non-governmental organisations to alleviate undernutrition.

Much more highly geared aid became available from the 'new philanthropists', mostly immensely wealthy US businessmen, and notably from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, founded in 1999 with a main interest in health. The wealth of Gates enables the release of around $US 800 million a year, a sum roughly the same as the annual operating budget of WHO. Together with the Irish rock musician Bono, Bill and Melinda Gates were on the cover of Time magazine in 2005 as its people of that year. Gates is a major supporter of GAIN (the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition), created in 2002 at a special session of the UN General Assembly whose focus was children.

The work of these highly geared operations has been intensified by the linked global finance, fuel and food crises that intensified in 2008. Their general philosophy can be seen to be broadly sympathetic with the conclusions of the contentious 2008 Copenhagen Consensus, In this process, eight economists, mostly US citizens, were asked to say what initiatives would be most likely to reduce undernutrition, and also would be most cost-effective. The 'top three' choices were supplementation with vitamin A and zinc, further trade 'liberalisation', and fortification with iron and salt. Priorities like these are highly attractive to transnational food and drink manufacturers. They are good for business, encourage the addition of micronutrients to ultra-processed energy-dense and otherwise nutrient-poor foods and drinks, and distract attention from the impact of many leading branded products on population health. The main objection to most of these initiatives comes from those who, like Dambisa Moyo, believe that they will generally increase dependency, increase bad governance, and impede the development of secure, adequate and nourishing food systems in impoverished countries. This debate continues.

The UN crisis

So there is a new climate in the 2000s, as far as global nutrition and food policy is concerned. This makes dark days for the SCN. It has included US hostility to the UN between 2000 and 2008, the creation of new highly industry-friendly organisations in the highest-income countries, the glamour of celebrity and billionaire philanthropy, the global financial and food crises, and a new approach to undernutrition and hunger that is influenced or even driven by industry. All this has eroded the authority of the UN. The crisis of the UNSCN is a reflection of a much bigger crisis. Relevant UN agencies have less and less discretionary funding. More and more key UN players take their cues from outside the UN system, and aside from the public goods that the UN is set up to serve, either from conviction or choice, or because they see no alternative. In this climate, it's easy or tempting to write off the SCN as a superseded 'typewriter and carbon paper' outfit, in an electronic world.

One plausible forecast, now better informed than the scenarios outlined in update #1 below, is that in due course, perhaps this mid-summer, the SCN will be subsumed into the SUN initiative, forming part of its secretariat. This would ease the work of a lot of people, and please others who have for some time wanted the SCN dead. The name may remain.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Index of updates

What follows now is a series of updates published as home page news items since the end of last October.

The first story below summarises the SCN position as it was understood by us on 29 October. Then follow Updates #1-3, also as of 29 October. These concern possible scenarios for the future of the SCN as suggested by a correspondent; contacts for those wishing to make their views known to Alexander Müller, or else to Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, and to David Nabarro, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for food security and nutrition; and a not entirely light-hearted appeal to readers who have the email of George Soros.

After this, below, follow Updates #4-9, current as of 4 November. These print the letter written by Boyd Swinburn, co-chair of the International Obesity Task Force, to Ban Ki-moon and David Nabarro; news of possible pledges made on and after 29 October by the UN agency members of the SCN; a brief account of the position of the World Bank and of how the SUN initiative fits into the picture; why the SCN needs $US 650,000 a year; an indication of where the intra-governmental Committee on Food Security fits; and a sign-off.

Updates #10-11, were current as of 20 November. These are the letter written to Association President Barrie Margetts by SCN Chair Alexander Muller, following our coverage above; the letter written by Barrie Margetts to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Updates #12-15 were current on 1 December. First is a notice of a further letter sent by Boyd Swinburn, together with Shiriki Kumanyika, as co-chairs of the International Obesity Task Force, to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, with a link to the pdf of their letter. We then reprint our assessment of realistic options for the SCN, and the summary of the Association's position on the SCN. Then a bit of fun. We reproduce a humorous comment on UN processes, sent by a correspondent.

Updates #16-20 were, as of 25 December, renewed or new. The first two reprint news on the power plays within the UN and elsewhere that impact on the SCN, and on the meeting of the 'big four' UN agencies in New York on 22 November. Update #18 is a revision of the table of accounts with which we led our home page in November, showing dues paid now up to date. Updates #19 and 20 include further observations following the Rome meeting of 14-15 December. Update #21 reprints the news item published on our February home page.

As shown in the accounts above, this year the World Food Programme and the World Bank have so far paid nothing, and the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization have to date paid only half of their dues. The position of the World Bank, which is counted as a UN agency (to the disgust of some senior UN executives) is curious. Its representative on the SCN steering committee has been vocal and emphatic at SC meetings held over the years, and yet the Bank has paid nothing since 2007. The notes of the 6 October SCN steering committee meeting state: ‘UNICEF was unpleasantly surprised to notice that so far, UNICEF is the only agency which paid 95% of its 2010 contribution’. No agency has advanced dues for 2011. Why this apparent preposterous irresponsibility?

Alexander Müller demanded a special urgent ad hoc meeting of the steering group, held on 28 October at 17.00 Swiss time. At this meeting, WHO pledged early payment of the second instalment of dues for 2010. The World Food Programme position was transformed by personal intervention of its director, who stated that she was shocked to learn that none of its dues had been paid. Would these new promises, assuming delivery, save the SCN? Hard to say.

Final appeal to UN secretary-general

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has now received an emergency open letter of appeal. It is from Ted Greiner, currently chair of the SCN civil society constituency, as such a member of the inner SCN steering committee, and a former chair of the SCN constituency of bilateral government agencies. He is now professor of nutrition at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea.

Professor Greiner writes: ‘The international nutrition community, especially here in your home country South Korea, was thrilled last month when you stated: “Please know that I am glad to be counted as a global nutrition leader.” I am writing to you now in hopes that you will exert such leadership now at a dire moment when the UN’s own nutrition harmonizing organization, the UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition (UN SCN) is on the brink of expiring.

‘As you know, the UN SCN was mandated... in 1977 to be a global point of convergence in harmonizing concepts, policies, strategies and programs in response to the nutritional needs of countries... The Chair, Dr Alexander Mueller of FAO, has informed that the UN SCN current budget situation obliges WHO to terminate half the UNSCN Secretariat staff.... The incumbents will be given notice of separation by 31 October.

He adds: ‘While this would be a serious concern any time, it is especially embarrassing at this moment when calls for leadership are sounding so loudly from your High Level Task Force on Global Food Security, the recent Lancet series on nutrition, and the 1000 Days Challenge that you spoke at last month’ He might have added that it is all the more perplexing, given the need for UN agencies to work in harmony towards the UN summit that Ban ki-Moon will host next September, and towards the ICN+20 FAO/WHO conference in 2012./ The letter ends with an appeal to the UN secretary-general to use his powers to guarantee the funds needed to keep the SCN alive.

Who wants to kill the SCN, and why?

The SCN has been under threat for some years. Its two previous chairs, Catherine Bertini, and Ann Veneman (director of UNICEF), were both approved by the Bush administration. Both have a background as Republican politicians – Ann Veneman as US Secretary of Agriculture. Both pushed hard to make SCN to accept industry – in practice, meaning industry whose interests are in conflict with those of public health – as a fourth constituency. Their pressure has been resisted by the bilateral and civil society constituencies, and also by WHO and FAO.

The forces within the SCN who want partnerships with industry, and in their own work are partnered with industry, are UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WPF), and also the World Bank. Members of the SCN steering committee who have spoken as representatives of these agencies are believed or known to be hostile to the civil society constituency, which they see as disruptive. One of these, who has now been removed as his agency’s representative, has described civil society organisations as contained within the SCN as amounting to a ‘cancer’ that must be cut out.

Ever since his appointment in 2009, Alexander Müller, who before joining FAO was a member of the German parliament, has done everything he could have done to keep the SCN alive, and in its multi-partite form. In this, he has support from a number of governments with special commitment to bilateral cooperation and aid. The notes of the 6 October SCN steering committee meeting say of possible future SCN meetings: ‘The dialogue with France continued and they are considering the possibility of financing a smaller session, especially in covering travel costs for participants from low and middle income countries’ More generally: ‘France has also offered to help mobilizing other donors (particularly the EC, Ireland, UK and Germany)’. The European Union and the Brazilian government are also known to be supportive. But with no petrol in the form of more funds in the tank right now, the SCN surely must conk out.

The world nutrition situation

One of the activities of the SCN is preparation and publication of regular authoritative reports on the world nutrition situation. Ironically, the sixth such report has been published on 29 October, the same day that the SCN staff were due to receive their notices of dismissal. It is now available on the SCN website Dr Müller has written a foreword to the report which, unless the SCN is rescued, makes decidedly ironic and indeed coded reading. He writes: ‘The nutrition community is witnessing, living through and helping to build very exciting and important times to Nutrition globally. The food and nutrition scene is definitely changing. New actors are joining forces, more effective connections are being made and stronger leadership is emerging. A nutrition movement to support countries to bring their efforts to scale is born. It is our collective responsibility to nourish and nurture this movement, setting aside individual stakeholder’s interests and agendas, acting as one team, and engaging in a truly collaborative joint work to improving nutrition. There simply is no time to waste’

He continues: ‘There is an urgent need for strengthening nutrition governance in countries, but also in regions and globally, to create an enabling policy and institutional environment for accelerated progress… Special attention should be given to four elements that good governance mechanisms should address: 1) leadership and stewardship, 2) development of existing in country capacities, 3) strengthening service delivery systems, and’ (he adds) ‘ 4) sufficient, adequate and appropriate financing’. Coded, indeed.

He then speaks of the SCN. He goes on to say: ‘For the progressive strengthening of nutrition systems at all levels, stakeholders and initiatives must act synergistically, and not be competitive… The UNSCN was mandated by the United Nations General Assembly intergovernmental Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1977 to be a global point of convergence in harmonizing nutrition policies and activities and providing initiative in the development and harmonization of concepts, policies, strategies and programmes in response to the nutritional needs of countries. Along its 30 years of existence, the UNSCN has been playing a relevant role in global nutrition’

He then emphasises commitment to the bilateral and civil society constituencies, while admitting industry. ‘ The time has come to reconstruct its working processes including all key nutrition stakeholders in the dialogue – country governments, bilateral cooperation partners, nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, private philanthropic foundations and the business sector, research and academic institutions, Bretton Woods institutions and the UN entities. The time is now to advance in re-organizing and modernizing its ways of operating. Through its reform, the UNSCN will better deliver global support functions that meet current needs’.

Finally he says: ‘The reform is progressing fast and institutional arrangements relating to nutrition are being looked at directly by senior executives of the UN as recognition that an effective mechanism for better collaboration, harmonization and accountability in nutrition is critically important’.

Does ‘reform’ mean ‘re-form’? Or in the event, will it turn out, despite all the efforts of Dr Müller, the UN SCN staff, and their many supporters, to mean assassination in the private interest? This remains to be seen for sure. Updates will be published on this website.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #1. 29 October. Scenarios

A correspondent writes: The whole story is, as might be expected, more complex than the summary above. Most of the key players inside and outside the UN system agree that a co-ordinated approach especially to world food insecurity is crucial, and that currently the UN agencies are in disrepute and disarray. Also, the personal intervention of the director of the World Food Programme, who in the last weeks of October has declared her fury at the failure of her agency to pay its dues, has changed the picture.

Here is what our correspondent has also told us.

Cannibalisation

One. The most likely scenario at the moment is that the secretariat functions of the SCN will be absorbed into the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS), a very high-level UN body with direct access to the UN secretary-general. The key player there is a distinguished Englishman, David Nabarro. He is known to be sympathetic to the SCN, but he will not favour irrational duplication of effort.

Early absorption of the SCN staff into the CFS would probably involve retention of some SCN core functions but would be the end of the SCN as a multi-partite body. It would be equivalent to a crashed car being ‘cannibalised’ – stripped of its swish bits like maybe gearbox, leather seats, door handles, fascia, hubs and insignia – before being crushed into a cube. Would civil society be engaged with the CFS? Maybe, but probably tightly controlled. The more radical groups like the breastfeeding groups would be booted, in favour of the ‘blue-rinse brigade’ of pliable industry-friendly NGOs. This would be a ‘top-down’ solution, of the sort that makes most international civil servants comfy. No more having to be in the same room as rancid rabble raving and ranting!

Odds for a version of this scenario currently look like evens. If a book was opened a good bet would be laid at 2-1.

Boston Strangulation

Two. The solution favoured by those committed to the assassination of the SCN, is some form of ‘public-private partnership’. This was discussed fairly recently by a group of academics and UN executives who met at Tufts University, who therefore became known as ‘the Boston Stranglers’

Plans here involve collaboration between UN agencies, industry-friendly academics (who thereby would gain much more power than they now have within the SCN), and foundations and agencies such as the Gates Foundation and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).Partners would also include transnational industries with a declared policy to help save Africa in particular. These include Pepsi-Co, Coca-Cola and Nestlé.

This scenario is disliked by a number of UN agencies and if adopted would splinter the UN system. Odds are therefore maybe 8-1. But odds on academics, foundations and industry going ahead anyway, in co-operation with industry-friendly UN agencies, are not even 1-10 on, because this has been happening for years now, as witness one example, ready to use therapeutic foods.

Project Phoenix

Three. A third possibility can be termed Project Phoenix. This would be some sort of merger of the SCN into the CFS which, while being the body that will call the shots, would change the nature of the CFS to be more concerned with nutrition, and more inclusive of national bilaterals and civil society organisations, and even allow them some formal say in its governance. It would preserve some of the core functions of the SCN. Staying with the cannibalisation analogy, this would be like junking the clapped-out engine but bolting on various working moving parts – like the SCN Reports on the World Nutrition Situation, SCN News, and even the SCN multi-constituency working groups on crucial international food and nutrition policy topics. The result could even be the equivalent of a stretch limo, though the working groups might indeed be a bit of a stretch for UN executives who, faced with debate, break out in hives and other allergic-type reactions.

Behind the scenes this is one scenario that Alexander Müller is trying for. David Nabarro, who is unusual at his very high level in the UN in favouring reasonable transparency and accountability, is believed to be sympathetic. It is favoured by some UN member states. It is hated by those UN agency staff who want to privatise public health food and nutrition policy. Discussion on this and other topics took place at UN agency assistant director-general level on Friday 29 October – the day before this story was posted. This could be the most likely scenario if the process is given time, implying that the SCN kept going independently until say the second half of 2011.

If a book was opened, a bet at 3-1 or 5-2 would be a good flutter.

Survival of the SCN

Four. The survival of the SCN, in its present form, or an adjusted form.

Even at 500-1, don’t waste your money

That’s what we hear.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #2. 29 October. Contacts

Readers who wish to intercede may do so most effectively by emailing the following:

Dr Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary-General:
sgcentral@un.org

Dr David Nabarro
Special Representative of the UN Secretary General,
Food Security and Nutrition
david.nabarro@undp.org
nabarro@un.org

as well as Alexander Müller
UN SCN Chair
Alexander.Mueller@fao.org

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #3. 29 October. Donors

Anybody who has the number of the private line of George Soros,
please email

Denise Costa Coitinho Delmuè
UN SCN Executive Secretary
coitinhod@who.int

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #4. 30 October
Boyd Swinburn to Ban Ki-moon

On 29 October Boyd Swinburn sent this letter to UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon

I am shocked to read about the imminent demise of the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition. The SCN has long survived on a level of funding far below the importance of the issues it is trying to address, and now it looks like the UN Agencies are about to let it starve to death at a time when inter-agency collaboration on food has never been more needed. We are entering what looks like a perfect storm for serious food wars:

The global population and its demand for food continues to soar

The type of food the currently wealthy and increasingly wealthy populations are demanding (more animal-based and processed foods) is unsustainable

The effects of climate change are escalating crop failures

The need to reduce carbon emissions and preserve habitat is paramount but will limit food production

The inequalities between wealthy and poorer nations are enormous and a major source of political tension

The existing or increasing dominance of non-communicable diseases in almost all countries is due in large part to poor nutrition

The food industry is increasingly influencing public policies in favour of commercial profits and against public health

The SCN, as previously configured with its small budget and remit, would not have been able to address all these enormous challenges, but allowing SCN to die will simply amplify the problems. The only justification for abandoning a coordinating body like SCN would be to build a far more potent, well-resourced agency to manage the most fundamental, and now seriously threatened, basis for human existence – a healthy, affordable, equitable and sustainable food system. Is the UN planning on creating a strengthened version of SCN or is it going to be allowed to die or disintegrate?

Boyd Swinburn
Director, WHO Collaborating Center for Obesity Prevention Deakin
University, Melbourne, Australia
boyd.swinburn@deakin.edu.au

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #5. 4 November
Some talk of Alexander

Is the SCN rescued? In the early evening of 29 October, exactly the time when this November issue of our website was posted, signals were sent that the money owed to the SCN is now going to be paid. This was as a result of the emergency meeting of relevant UN agencies at assistant director-general (ADG) level, called by SCN chair Alexander Müller. The World Bank was not represented at the meeting (more of that in Update #6, below) and not everybody present at the meeting was an ADG. We understand that at the meeting, pledges were made to pay all outstanding 2010 dues without delay, and also to pay 2011 dues in time to keep the SCN going. Euphoria? So is the crisis over? Should we now scrap the tables that lead this story?

No, it is not, and no we should not – not yet, anyway. Firstly, while the information above comes from good sources (otherwise we would not publish) it has to be verified. Association President Barrie Margetts has asked Alexander Müller to put the agreement in writing, and Alexander has in turn asked the relevant ADGs to put their agreements in writing, to back what he writes. Until then, the information above is formally only a rumour. Besides, pledges have been made before. Besides, the issue is not merely money. More important, is the level at which the SCN (or any successor body) works within the UN, its transparency and accountability, and its scope and influence.

Another meeting at ADG level is being held, in Rome, in a few days’ time as this Update is posted. Alexander Müller may prefer to wait until that meeting is agreed and recorded, before making a formal statement. In his place we would be cautious.

Besides, what’s the deal? In the past, the reason agencies have given for withholding their dues, is that they would not pay up until the SCN was reformed into a shape they approved. This meant kicking out the SCN working groups on vital topics (nutrition and AIDS, nutrition and human rights, for example). It also meant kicking out the CSOs (civil society constituency), perhaps in favour of a few non-government organisations that could be trusted not to make any commotions, otherwise offensively known as ‘the blue-rinse brigade’. It additionally meant bringing in ‘the private sector’ as a new constituency. In practice, ‘the private sector’ means that section of the food and drink manufacturing and allied industries whose policies and practices are harmful to public health, and specifically transnationals such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Masterfoods (previously known as Mars), Yum! Brands, and McDonalds, to mention some firms whose representatives regularly engage with WHO and other UN agencies, as invited or when they can. The International Life Sciences Institute, whose core funds come from firms like those listed above, is also categorised as ‘private sector’, as a BINGO (business interest NGO).

All this has been resisted by Alexander Müller, who is being exceptionally tenacious and far-sighted – as well he might be, with his background as a German Green politician. The latest SCN reform plan resists these pressures. The World Bank’s response to this latest draft is polite fury. A note from the Bank in response to the latest reform plan, sent in late October, referring to meetings held in Bangkok late last year, says: ‘At that time, it was agreed that the SCN Working Groups would disband and the CSO engagement would re-size in order to effectively restructure as a harmonized, agile UN agency group committed to facilitating results in nutrition. These agreements were documented in the SCN Steering committee minutes and yet do not seem to be reflected in the current draft document under review’. (BureauSpeak decode – ‘disband’ here means ‘be trashed’, ‘re-size’ means ‘be kicked out in favour of NGOs who won’t squawk’ and ‘agile’ means ‘eviscerated’).

However, the Bank is no longer one of the ‘Four+One’ round the SCN steering committee table (see below), and Alexander Müller’s view may be that there is no representation without taxation.

So, at least in the opinion of those who are committed to the improvement and maintenance of public health nutrition, Alexander is doing a great job. But we await formal news, and also news of what is the deal.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #6. 4 November
The SUN also rises

The note from the World Bank quoted above also says: ‘During the 19th International Congress on Nutrition (November 2009) when the SCN reform was first discussed at a side meeting, it was agreed that the focus of the UNSCN reform was to deliver on the One-UN agenda. To this end, the World Bank agreed to step down from the core group, leaving representation from the four UN agencies involved in SCN: FAO, WFP, UNICEF, and WHO’. In part, ‘step down’ by implication is BureauSpeak for ‘ Not one cent will you get from us’.

So why has the Bank continued to be part of the SCN steering committee, and why has it continued to be so disruptive, acting in such a bloody-minded and high handed way at these meetings?

One standard answer is: ‘Oh, that’s the Bank’. Certainly, under its new leader Robert Zoellick, the Bank’s style, as reflected in the demeanour of some (by no means all) of its executives, is still that of a corporate Master of the Universe, so common in the pre-world banking system crash. Not helpful.

But there is more to it than that. There always is, with the UN. The Bank, and many other big players, is committed to what it sees as Plan A, which is Scaling Up Nutrition, naturally known as SUN. In due course this website will have a go at fitting the SUN into the nutrition universe, while trying to avoid a mind-boggling intergalactic approach. It’s enough to say now that the SCN, certainly in the view of the Bank, has no place in the SUN, except as a satellite. More on this later.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #7. 4 November
Money. Why $US 650,000?

One rather unkind repeated response to the summary table of SCN accounts that heads this account of the SCN crisis is: Why does the SCN need more or less $US 650,000 a year? What does it do with all that dosh? Indeed, what does the SCN do? True, a footballer may ‘earn’ over half a million in a month, but, all the same... Even the World Bank has been muttering to this effect, which considering what the Bank spends as pocket money, is a bit rich.

One answer is that any UN operation is, seen from an academic or civil society perspective, rather expensive. Over half SCN expenditure is on staff. Until three were dismissed at the end of last month, they totalled six. The SCN chair, now Alexander Müller, is not paid for that responsibility, and WHO in effect donates office space to the SCN. The UN, including WHO as the SCN host agency, is in these tough times a relatively good employer. Staff are on international civil servant pay scales, anybody on the established staff is pensioned, the cost of living in Geneva is high And so on.

It is of course true that a civil society organisation could do its equivalent of what the SCN does, for a fraction of the price. But that couldn’t be what the SCN does, which is to ensure that UN agency food and nutrition policies and actions are harmonious. That’s big stuff. But... it’s more accurate to say, ‘what the SCN needs to do’ or ‘what the SCN is set up to do’. For some time now the SCN has been hamstrung – and that’s another story.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #8. 4 November
The CFS and David Nabarro

Correction to Update #1. David Nabarro currently is the special representative of Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, for food security and nutrition. He does not work for the Committee on World Food Security (CFS). The CFS (which does not have the word ‘nutrition’ in its title) iis an inter-governmental body, with a tripartite secretariat supplied by FAO, IFAD (the International Fund for Agricultural Development) and WFP. It is hosted by FAO. Its members are UN member states. Some civil society organisations have seats on the 12-member CFS advisory group, as does David Nabarro. At its last meeting, held between 14-16 October, it was agreed that the SCN would be the 13th member of the advisory group, taking into account the nature of the SCN, as a UN coordinating body with its own stakeholder mechanism. Obviously David Nabarro’s work is closely linked with that of the CFS, which operates at a much higher level than the SCN currently does.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #9. 4 November
And?

That’s all, folks, for the moment. We are sorry that these updates do not contain more facts and information: we will report on these as they come in. Will we comment on the latest SCN reform plan? Yes, in a future update. What about the big issue, which is the place of the SCN, or a body replacing the SCN, within the UN family? Yes, we’ll be publishing on that, too. What about the specific issues, of the involvement within the SCN of civil society, the involvement of the food and drink manufacturing industry, and the SCN as a deliberative body? Yes yes yes, these also. And about the appeals to Ban Ki-moon? If only because of the delicious prospect of headlines here combining Moon and SUN, you can be sure that we will be animadverting on this also. Forgive some of these Update posts being written in a light-hearted style. Malnutrition is a serious business.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #10. 20 November
The SCN Chair writes to us

On Monday 8 November, Association President Barrie Margetts received the following message from SCN Chair Alexander Müller.

Alexander Müller’s letter

Dear Barrie

I read with interest the article regarding the SCN on the WPHNA website and felt it may be helpful if it is brought up to date and the factual errors corrected.

The UNSCN is a United Nations coordinating mechanism which is dedicated to serving the public interest through developing and disseminating relevant public goods for improving nutrition.

The SCN’s stakeholders have requested that it undergo reform so that it is better suited for long-term, reliable and effective support to the world-wide efforts to tackle under-nutrition. The aim of the reform is to establish an agile interagency group that helps the UN system work with its partners to facilitate nutrition outcomes in a coordinated and effective way. It should enable nutrition stakeholders to exchange best practice, speak and be heard - making connections between health, food security, social protection and other relevant sectors, and positioning nutrition as central to development. Senior officers from FAO, WHO, UNICEF and WFP are now working together to conclude the reform of the UNSCN without further delay. They have also agreed that, if the necessary resources are available, the UNSCN could be among the group of agencies that support the open architecture for the implementation of the Scaling Up Nutrition Roadmap.

Pending the successful completion of the reforms the UN agencies that currently finance the SCN have agreed to pay their 2010 contributions. We expect 2011 contributions to be transferred early next year.

In addition the Government of France has also made a contribution and others are expected. The World Bank was supporting the SCN through a 3-year development grant facility that was expected to end in 2007. The SCN was informed of this in 2007, all pledged payments were delivered in full, and no further payments are due.

We are witnessing the build-up of a new momentum for nutrition. We are all helping to make it happen and it is important that each of us contributes to the movement as best we can

Regards
Alexander Müller
Chair, UNSCN

We were alarmed by this letter, because it makes clear that payment of dues owing to the SCN still remain conditional on reform of the SCN of the counter-productive type favoured by one or two UN agencies represented on the steering group, and by the World Bank. As stated above, this includes admission of conflicted industry, rejection of the civil society group, and also abandonment of the multi-actor working groups concerned with important policy issues.

The ‘factual errors’ mentioned are actually one point. The World Bank ceased payments to the SCN in 2007, as we stated in the table of accounts at the front of our coverage. However, the principle that eligibility for membership of the SCN steering group required dues to be paid remained in force. The World Bank representative continued to contribute to meetings, by email or in person. The notes of the 6 October 2010 meeting state that the fact that the Bank last made any payment in 2007 ‘should... be brought to the attention of the WB senior executives’. So we think we were not in error.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #11. 20 November
The SCN. We write to Ban Ki-Moon

The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had by this time been sent letters expressing consternation at the perilous situation of the SCN. These came from Ted Greiner, chair of the SCN civil society group, from a number of concerned health professionals, and from Boyd Swinburn, director of the WHO collaborating centre at Deakin University, Australia. (See Update #4 above)

Given the alarming news from Alexander Muller, Barrie Margetts also wrote, on Wednesday 10 November, to the UN Secretary-General, as follows

Our letter to Ban Ki-moon

His Excellency Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations
United Nations HQ, 760 UN Plaza
New York 100017, NY, USA

The United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition

Dear Mr Secretary-General

I am writing to you in my capacity as President of the World Public Health Nutrition Association (the Association), after consultations with the Association Council.

You will know that consternation is being expressed in response to the news that the UN System Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) is threatened with extinction, and has now been scaled down to a point where it cannot fulfil its duties. With my colleagues in the Association, I share this concern.

The SCN has been built up over more than 30 years. It should now be recognised as a special UN resource, that should be made secure and strengthened. To starve, subsume or abandon the SCN and its ‘brand’ now, would be a mistake, and would send out a wrong signal.

‘Please know that I am glad to be counted as a global nutrition leader’. Your statement, made during the introduction of the ‘1000 Days: Change a Life, Change the Future’ initiative in September in New York, has given new heart to us, who have dedicated our professional lives to international and national nutrition policy and practice.

We recognise that these are new times. Malnutrition in all its forms is one aspect of what is now agreed to be a general global crisis, of which the linked financial, fuel and food crises are other aspects. The newly strengthened Committee on Food Security (CFS), and your High Level Task Force on Food Security, are strong responses to this crisis, as is the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative.

However, the world nutrition situation, now and for the future, is not only about undernutrition. Nor, we are sure, would you want the policies and programmes of the UN and its member agencies in the area of nutrition to be mainly confined to responses to crises and emergencies. It is essential also to focus on the underlying and basic social, economic and environmental determinants of disease, health and well-being. This is one reason why the SCN needs to be preserved, as a multi-constituency deliberative as well as harmonising body.

Alexander Müller, chair of the SCN, has written to us stating that, as a result of an emergency meeting at ADG level held at the end of last month, the dues immediately owing by UN agencies for 2010 have been or will be paid in full, and that some of the 2011 dues urgently needed to enable the SCN to fulfil its duties are pledged. But he has also explained that outstanding dues for 2010, and all the dues now needed for 2011, remain conditional. He has also told us that the World Bank’s financial commitment to the SCN ended in 2007. We are publishing his letter together with our comments.

The pledges now made by SCN major member agencies do not resolve the crisis. First, these currently remain conditional on the agencies’ acceptance of a reform of the SCN, which remains under discussion. Second, the SCN needs a reserve of money to be secure. We believe that the directors-general of WHO, FAO, UNICEF and WFP should now honour their financial commitments, unconditionally. This means that their dues both for the 2010 and the 2011 years should now be now paid in full. This will enable the SCN to retain its staff and to fulfil its work, including the process of reform that is still ongoing

Third, while adequate funds are essential, the main issue here is the purpose, scope and status of the SCN.

We ask just one thing. This is that with your unique authority, you confirm that the SCN is indeed a valuable UN resource. We hope that you will also state that the SCN will now be made secure and stable and be strengthened. We will be pleased to publish such a statement.

The Association will be making our own proposals for the reform of the SCN. These will be published not later than 1 December, and will also be sent directly to Alexander Müller.

This letter is sent to you on Wednesday 10 November. We propose to post it on our website on Thursday 18 November. [Later – actually 20 November] We will of course also post your response. We will also be responsive to any guidance from your office received before 18 November.

With kind regards
Barrie Margetts

The World Public Health Nutrition Association (the Association) is the professional body for public health nutrition worldwide. Most of our members are senior in the nutrition and allied professions. Members come from all continents and currently over 40 countries. Our activities include our website: www.wphna.org, and also our on-line journal World Nutrition. Both are renewed monthly, and the website is updated as needed within any month.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #12. 1 December
IOTF writes to Ban Ki-Moon

Update #4, above, is the letter written on 29 October to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon by Boyd Swinburn, Director of the WHO collaborating centre at Deakin University, Australia, whose mandate is the prevention of obesity. On 19 November he wrote a further letter to Ban Ki-moon, this time in his capacity as co-chair of the International Obesity Task Force, together with IOTF co-chair Shiriki Kumanyika. Access the pdf here

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #13. 1 December
The end game?

Here is what we posted as the introduction to our updates of 20 November. 22 November looks like being a day of decision for the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN). This is the day of a special session of the SCN steering committee, being held at UNICEF headquarters in New York. The agenda of the meeting is to decide the future of the SCN. After five or so years of discussion, it seems likely that some final agreements will be made.

One option and outcome is now ruled out: that the SCN will be immediately killed. This will not happen in the immediate future. Indeed, a two-day event is scheduled for 14-15 December, identified as a ‘kick-off’ meeting, apparently a launch of the ‘new’ SCN. It remains possible that the SCN will in time suffer ‘death from a thousand cuts’, but as stated in Update #10 below, remaining dues owing from UN agencies for 2010 are now formally pledged, pending revision of the SCN. The issue here of course is – what sort of revision? Dues for 2011 are also urgently needed, to keep the SCN going, and it will not be secure until it also has a couple of years of annual income in reserve. Among the various possible options and outcomes, three seem real possibilities.

It now seems certain that the SCN will survive in some form, though to do what, and with what capacity, remains to be seen. Among the permutations of possibility, three – or some combination of the three – seem to be runners.

Public-private partnership’

The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative, which had a launch in New York on 21 September this year, is what is known as a ‘public-private partnership’. David Nabarro, special representative of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for food security and nutrition, has a specific responsibility within the UN system for SUN

The concept is that UN agencies, governments, civil society organisations, and industry, work together for the public good. Its main purpose so far is to combat undernutrition, including food insecurity, hunger and starvation. It has been given impetus by the recent and current inter-related fuel, finance and food crises. Its general philosophy has much in common with the UN Global Compactt launched in July 2000. Some discussion at recent meetings of the SCN steering committee has centred on the possibilities of the SCN taking responsibility for progressing SUN’s work (transformation), or supplying the secretariat for SUN (relegation), or being merged into SUN (disappearance). If this course is taken the second possibility seems the more likely.

One problem, which has divided members of the SCN steering committee, is that in the field of nutrition, unlike other areas covered by the UN Global Compact, the ‘private sector’ wanting to engage is almost entirely made up from conflicted industry. These notably are the transnational manufacturers of ultra-processed energy-dense ‘fast’ and snack food products and of sugary drinks which, consumed in typical quantities, are harmful to personal and public health.

The Association believes that the SCN should remain a UN body. Turning the SCN into any sort of a ‘public-private partnership’ would be misguided.

Civil society out, industry in

The SCN began as a UN co-ordinating and harmonising body, advised at UN executives’ invitation by individual scholars, and by some national governments in their role as bilateral aid agencies. In the last ten years or so the SCN proliferated, and its civil society group, admitted as a result of the 2000 SCN meeting held in Washington, became numerically the largest group, with one seat on the steering committee.

One or two of the UN agency steering group members, and also the World Bank (whose position in the SCN is not altogether clear), strongly dislike this arrangement, and have withheld their dues until the SCN is revised to their satisfaction. What they want is for the civil society group to be kicked out, and perhaps to be replaced by amenable non-government organisations. These steering group members also favour admitting ‘the private sector’, meaning in practice conflicted usually transnational food, drink, allied and associated organisations. They have pressed their point consistently for about five years, lately with the additional pressure of withholding their dues.

The Association believes that admitting conflicted industry as ‘voting’ full members of the SCN, or rejecting civil society organisations, would be a mistake.

Dual roles, one UN only, one multi-actor

This is the alternative recommended by the Association. For more details please go to Update #12 below. Our position has much in common with the plan prepared by SCN Chair Alexander Müller and the SCN secretariat, and yet at the same time agrees with some of the views of fierce critics of the SCN.

This option separates the pan-UN harmonisation function of the SCN, which remains as essential now as ever, from its deliberative function. These two functions have been mixed up in the last ten years or so, mistakenly. Once separated, the harmonisation function is clearly UN business, and the governing body here should be solely made up from senior UN executives. Advisors can be invited with observer status.

By contrast, the deliberative function, which includes discussion and eventual agreement on important, emerging and even contentious nutrition policy issues, should be multi-actor. It should be conducted as a forum, formally reporting to the governing body above. It should include as members, all by invitation, representatives of member states in their role as bilaterals, of civil society organisations, and of non-conflicted industry outside as well as inside the food and drink sector. A limited number of representatives from conflicted industry may be invited with observer status.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #14. 1 December
The SCN: Our recommendations

This repeats what we posted on 20 November, apart from the lines below. After more consultations, our Council, as mandated by our membership, agreed the Association’s position on the SCN. The final version is now published in
World Nutrition.
One conclusion has been that it is not possible rationally to defend the SCN in its recent or present form, or in a form that would amount only to adjustment. There are three sufficient reasons for this view.

The scope of nutrition

The first reason is that since its foundation, the SCN has been mainly concerned with malnutrition in the ‘classic’ sense of undernutrition, involving deficiencies of nutrients, food insecurity, and at worst hunger and even starvation. But in recent years a series of UN and other bodies and intiatives have been set up to address these issues, some at the highest level. These include the intra-governmental Committee on Food Security (CFS), the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Task Force (HLTF), the intra-UN agency REACH initiative (previously known as Ending Child Hunger and Undernutrition, or ECHUI) and the multi-actor Global Action on Nutrition (GAP) initiative, segueing into the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative, announced at the ‘1000 Days: Change a Life, Change the Future’ event on 21 September in New York, with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a keynote speaker.

If anything there are too many cooks of this alphabet broth – or too many broths. These and other bodies have been given impetus by the recent related finance, fuel and food crises, which have increased global inequity, poverty and misery. If the SCN remained a separate body focused on undernutrition, there would not be much left for it to do; all the more so, given that senior specialist UN executives are pressed to keep up with all the initiatives that are now launched.

The gap left by these bodies and iniatiatives is nutrition as a whole. This wider scope will justify the permanent existence of the SCN, especially at times when the UN agencies and other bodies at top level are rightly focused on specific issues such as food insecurity crises.

The scope of the SCN should address nutrition, and food as this relates to nutrition, as a whole. It should not be confined to undernutrition and its prevention, control and relief. A substantial amount of its work should therefore be strategic.

The SCN has two separate functions

The second sufficient reason is that the SCN has two functions. One is to harmonise the nutrition policies and programmes of the many UN agencies working in this field. The other function is deliberative – in effect, to discuss issues that may take shape as UN nutrition policies. But for ten years or so, these two functions, which need to be separated, have been mixed together, notably in the SCN’s week-long annual meetings that took place up to 2008. This has caused confusion.

In particular, some UN executives have felt that it is not appropriate for people outside the UN to be members of meetings that discuss harmonisation of UN policies. They also have felt that anybody present at such meetings not from the UN, should be by invitation only, with observer status. We agree.

The SCN has two separate functions, harmonisation and deliberative. The harmonisation governing body is UN business, and all its members, without exception, should be senior UN officials. The deliberative forum and its membership should be multi-actor.

SCN members as representatives

The third reason, is that normal UN rules specify that people from outside the UN who are eligible to participate in UN meetings, do so not as individuals, but as representatives, of relevant organisations or entities, including national governments (as member states), and non-governmental organisations.

By contrast, for the last ten years or so, members of the SCN civil society group, and also some of the bilateral (government) group, have participated in SCN business and meetings as individuals, with no real representative credentials. In effect, anybody identifying themselves as from civil society, and sometimes also from a member state, has been able to turn up at SCN meetings and say what they like.

This has been resented by some UN executives, who feel that members, and observers, of the SCN process should, as usual, be representatives, and identified as such. Exceptions can be made in the case of individual scholars. We agree.

The SCN should remain a UN body, controlled in all its work by the UN, and dedicated to the UN principles that uphold peace, justice, freedom and human rights. All members of the SCN should be representatives.

The line between non-conflicted and conflicted industry

One change proposed by fierce critics of the SCN should not take place. This is the proposal that representatives of conflicted industry be admitted as full ‘voting’ members of the SCN.

The future of the SCN has been debated for five years and more. One sticking point has been its relationship with ‘the private sector’. Successive SCN position papers on this issue have been circulated.

Members of the harmonising governing body of the SCN should all be senior executives of relevant UN agencies. Industry outside and also inside the food, drink and allies sectors may participate in the deliberative forum. Non-conflicted and conflicted industry need to be distinguished, with a small number only of representatives of conflicted industry invited as observers. We think it is essential that the UN agencies make initial invitations, ensure that most people from industry have no public health conflicts, ensure that food industry members and observers altogether represent food systems as a whole, limit numbers, limit transnationals, control balance, monitor developments, and accept only main board executives and not public affairs people. A similar discipline for the other constituencies is also appropriate

Industry outside and also inside the food, drink and allied sectors should engage with the SCN’s deliberative forum. Non-conflicted industry representatives should be eligible to be members of the forum. Some representatives from industries with conflicted interests may be invited as observers.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #15. 1 December
Dilbert’s take

While our investigation was under way, we received the cartoon below. It was published 13 years ago, so we hope Scott Adams and its owners won’t mind its reproduction here. It is scurrilous, unfair, unreasonable, unkind – and also, we think, rather funny.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #16. 1 December
Power players

1 December. (This item appeared in the December issue) As of late November, some cash is arriving or is imminent, from UN member states and elsewhere outside the UN system, to keep the SCN alive. ‘Not a lot, but right now commitment is the main thing’ is one comment we have heard. Money has arrived from France, should be coming from Germany and Ireland, and is promised from the EC for the 2011 year. Brazil also wants to help. As and when the World Food Programme pays its 2011 dues, the contracts of the SCN staff that are now suspended may be renewed.

Our editor Geoffrey Cannon, who has a vivid imagination, comments: ‘Remember the ‘Rocky’ movies, and the scenes where our hero, pummelled apparently into pulp by much heavier opponents, staggers out of his corner at the beginning of round 11, 12, 13, only to be smashed about again? But then, finally, in the final rounds, wham, and the bad guys are out for the count? Well, just maybe this will prove to be the SCN story, with chair Alexander Müller in the Sylvester Stallone role, and with UN Secretary-General special representative (food security and nutrition) David Nabarro as the veteran coach’.

These moves certainly seem to be changing the game. Member states, like all donors, will not give their somethings, even modest, for nothing. Maybe the dreams of those who want the SCN in all its aspects to be a UN closed shop are not going to come true. Member states are now in on the act.

The issue is only partly one of money. The main issues are ones of power. To put it clearly, the struggle is between players and alliances of players who want to run the world. A strong SCN reflects a confident, integrated United Nations system. A weakened, demoralised UN system, with money drained from its discretionary funds, cannot deliver a resilient SCN. That’s a core issue.

Another and corresponding core issue concerns the new players who, since the UN Global Compact was proclaimed by then Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2000, are invited to partner with UN agencies and member states. These include the new ‘philanthropies’ of which the immensely resourced Gates Foundation is the most powerful in our field; the World Bank, which to the astonishment of many is now counted as a UN body; the World Economic Forum, which like the Bank equates progress with more money for some; and consortia of funding bodies and senior academics from businesslike universities and research centres. Also, perhaps above all, the very biggest players: the transnational food and drink manufacturers and allied and associated industries, including the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. These new players support the Global Compact and its concept of ‘public-private partnerships’. They all have interests in common. Collectively and even individually they are liable to dominate any partnerships of which they are members. They are in effect gradually and now rather quickly tending to privatise the UN system and thus to privatise public health.

So yes, the SCN is still on the ropes.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #17. 1 December
The Group of Four make their move

New York, 1 December. (This item appeared in the December issue). On 2 November the ‘Big Four’ UN members (WHO, FAO, UNICEF, WFP) met to discuss the SCN reform process, together with chair Alexander Müller and executive secretary Denise Costa Coitinho Delmuè. The World Bank was not represented. Documents indicate that the Bank is now not a member of the SCN. The meeting lasted for three and a half hours. No final decisions were made.

Left to themselves, the Group of Four agreed that the SCN is essential and that non-UN groups should remain part of the process. It was agreed that these groups should include ‘the private sector’. How, and what ‘private sector’ means, was not specified. It was confirmed that the SCN will support the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative, in ways to be specified. A further draft of the SCN reform plan will be submitted to the Group of Four by 7 December, in time for a larger meeting in Rome on 14-15 December, to which Association President Barrie Margetts is invited. The non-UN groups were invited to make very prompt proposals for the reform of their groups. The Association has done so, in the form of recommendations published in December and an annex to these recommendations published this month. These have also been circulated directly to the SCN chair and executive secretary.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #18. 20 December
Money, that’s not all they want

20 December. This item is new. The summary table of SCN accounts above, updates the table we first published in our November issue (see above, ‘The story begins’). The three main differences are as follows.

First, all the ‘Group of Four’ (G4) UN agencies have now paid their 2010 dues. Are any of these payments on condition that the reformed SCN takes a preferred shape? This is not known. If such pressure has been exerted, the result could be a mess, since members of the G4 do not all have the same views. The SCN staff whose conflicts are suspended will probably now be able to continue their work for some more weeks, but dues for 2011 are urgently needed to keep the SCN going. Some members of the G4 have confirmed their 2011 pledges, but to date no 2011 dues have been banked.

Second, the position of the World Bank is clarified. After 2007 and until October 2010 the Bank was not paying dues, but its representative continued to contribute to SCN steering committee meetings and, sometimes, to attend them. In October the Bank confirmed that no more dues after 2007 could be expected, and regularised its position by withdrawing from the steering committee. Some welcome this move, others fear the consequences. In recent years the Bank has been notoriously dismissive of the UN system, and its concept of development is driven by ‘market’ economic models, such as those of the highly contentious Copenhagen Consensus Center. The Bank is also known to prefer the relatively freewheeling Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) initiative, in which conflicted industry plays a leading part. How the SUN initiative may relate to a reformed SCN remains unclear – nobody yet knows.

Third, some member states, and also the EC, have pledged contributions, although so far only money from France has been received. How many contributions materialise, and what percentage of the total SCN budget they amount to, remains to be seen. The effect of significant contributions to the SCN from outside the UN system could be negative, because as a result cash-strapped UN agencies might reduce their dues. As already noted, payments from sources outside the UN system are an issue of power as well as of money. What if Coca-Cola or McDonald’s offered money? The Association’s position is that income from any source should not confer privileges, and that income from conflicted sources is not acceptable.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #19. 20 December
Rome: There’s a will

20 December. The SCN meeting in Rome held in 14-15 December has outlined a shape for the 'new' SCN. In some ways this is a reversion to its shape up to 2000, when its governance was firmly and clearly in the hands of the UN agencies themselves. The most importance outcome of the Rome meeting for the SCN was its relative corporate self-confidence. There is a will, so there should be a way.

The SCN is no longer treading water. It will continue, it will preserve its core functions, it will be concerned with nutrition policy as a whole, and it will institute a rational system of governance up and down its line according to UN rules and processes. The main signal of this, is the close collegiate relationship between current SCN chair Alexander Müller, and David Nabarro, who as UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's special representative for food security and nutrition, with what that implies, is 'the main man'. As one of the most senior external and internal UN ambassadors, and as a person of exceptional experience and sagacity, his presence and support at the Rome meeting has meant that the SCN will not be crippled or trashed.

Much remains to be decided and done, and here David Nabarro's advice that final and detailed agreements on SCN governance and structure should not be hurried, is additionally helpful. It is gratifying that so far, decisions taken and indicated so far are on the same lines as the Association's recommendations. This is perhaps not surprising, since in developing its recommendations, the Association has been advised and guided by present and past SCN people inside and outside the UN system.

Association publications secretary Geoffrey Cannon comments: If we are right in now thinking that the SCN will now be able effectively to do its basic job, and that it also will create an effective forum to advise the UN on policy, this will be a triumph of calm thinking and common sense.

Since 2000 the SCN has been thrown off track by four forces. One was successive impositions of SCN chairs who tried to force the SCN to follow the line of the then US administration. Two remains the incursion of the World Bank and with it the World Economic Forum and Big Snack, in the form of conflicted transnational food, drink and associated industries and their supporters. Three also remains the clout of the new 'philanthropies', also dominantly from the USA, who in the name of freedom, development and other good things, impose their agenda on the UN. Four, pulling in a different direction, has been the civil society group within the SCN, which despite valiant attempts at leadership, has proved to be disruptive and discordant.

Steering a straight course through all this has required the most extraordinary resolution and stamina, supplied by Alexander Müller, always working as he does in the general and public interest. We are glad and proud to be playing a useful part in the reformation of the SCN, and see such tasks as one of our duties, on behalf of world nutrition.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #20. 20 December
Rome: Is there a way

Rome. Barrie Margetts reports: I have just come out of a two-day senior-level meeting called by the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition here in Rome, to which the Association was invited. After five years of precarious existence and a year of crisis, it now does look as if the SCN will make a new start and does have a future. One of our main recommendations, to separate the harmonisation of UN agencies' nutrition policies from the discussion of current and potential policies, has been agreed. It was also agreed that the SCN should cover nutrition as a whole, while giving special attention to policies and programmes designed to protect the lives, health and well-being of vulnerable populations, and children most of all.

On 22 November, the four UN agencies with current chief responsibility for the SCN (WHO, FAO, UNICEF, World Food Programme) held a special session in New York. This 'Group of Four' once again discussed reform of the SCN. The Group requested that 'representatives from bilaterals and from NGOs/CSOs identify mechanisms for better organizing their constituencies'. The request was for a prompt response.

In response, our Council has been busy. Last month we completed and published general recommendations for the SCN. For this month we completed and now publish more detailed recommendations focusing on the governance and structure of the SCN. The scope of our recommendations is broad, because we have concluded that reform of any one non-UN SCN group should apply to all groups. We also comment on the organisation of the UN group. Both sets of recommendations were circulated to the SCN chair, executive secretary and other UN SCN members well before the Rome meeting of 14-15 December.

The Rome meeting

The purpose of the Rome meeting has been to make firm progress on the SCN reform process. We were invited and I attended on behalf of the Association. About 50 people were at the meeting, mostly from the UN, and also from member states in their role as bilaterals (such as the USA and Canada), non-government organisations (such as Sight and Life) and industry (Unilever). We were repeatedly thanked for our recommendations, which helped to shape thinking and discussion. David Nabarro, special representative of the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon for food security and nutrition, and as such the most senior UN executive present, stated that our work has been and is being very helpful.

Clearly the SCN will continue, with a rational reporting structure up the UN line. It will not be buried or abolished. Its governance will be more firmly in the hands of the UN agencies themselves, another one of our recommendations. One question now raised, in the light of recent support offered, is whether member states should share in SCN governance. As we also have recommended, all other groups, including civil society organisations, and industry ('the private sector'), will have observer status only. The SCN annual sessions are likely to be revived, as the occasion for the face-to-face deliberative forum we have recommended. The meeting agreed that final decisions and important details concerning the SCN reform should not be rushed.

Publications secretary Geoffrey Cannon comments: While gratifying, it is not surprising that our recommendations are proving to be close to the thinking thus far of the UN group of the SCN. We have had the benefit of guidance from many key players, currently and also formerly within the UN system, and from others with insight into the SCN. Much of our thinking has synthesised the thinking of others. It has been a privilege, as well as tough work, to do this job. Our main concern has been that in upholding the SCN as a UN body that necessarily must follow UN rules, we have parted company with various members of the civil society group of the SCN. We maintain that all those present at SCN meetings should be representatives of organisations, and also that non-SCN groups, should these remain constituted, should be overseen by the SCN chair and secretariat, and also pay their own way. This insistence on proper discipline may be one reason why our recommendations are proving to be rather popular with the UN agencies.

United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition

Update #21. February
The jury is still out

This is what we published last month. The SCN will continue. What form it will take remains to be seen. There is no agreed masterplan. Member states in the form of bilaterals may or may not have a hand in the SCN's governance and are tending to say that their money buys control. The civil society constituency may or may not be subjected to a needed radical reform and are tending to say that they want not to be controlled. The 'private sector' remains likely to be admitted as a new constituency, and nobody so far seems to be prepared to make sure that this means much more than trannational food and drink manufacturers and their front organisations.

Alexander Müller's term as SCN chair ends at the end of this year. Denise Costa Coitinho Delmuè's term as executive secretary ends in the middle of this year – in three months' time. This will prove to be a particular test, because up to now her salary has been paid in effect as on secondment from WHO, whereas a future salary would be additional.