A non-governmental organisation Focus 1000 and the Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) received a two-person delegation Tuesday from Liberia’s civil society platform in the office of the Vice President, to develop strategies that would reduce and eventually eliminate malnutrition in both countries.

 Liberia is in the process of setting up its civil society platform and came over to understand how they can work with Sierra Leone in the fight against malnutrition.

The cross-border visit that was proposed by the Liberian delegation, searched for best practices from Sierra Leone which they would then employ to establish their own platform.

The SUN secretariat in Sierra Leone, which is under the Office of the Vice President, has as one of its mandates, to bring government focal points and members from multi stakeholder platforms together, interact, share progress, learn and be inspired to achieve more in line with nutrition.

The SUN will be embarking with the delegation on a trip to focal points across the country, to experience firsthand; Sierra Leone’s work in her strides to eradicate malnutrition.

 Since 2010, SUN and its multi-sector, multi-stakeholder, and multilevel approach, has been embraced by now 53 countries in Africa south of the Sahara, Asia, and Latin America of which 27 are countries with the highest burden of malnutrition and 30 are fragile and conflict-affected countries.

Within SUN and non-SUN countries, civil society has played a key role in building and maintaining commitment for nutrition.

Their Liberian counterpart, Ellen Poolman Manuweera said, the panel reflects civil society organization’s experience within the SUN. She also spoke about the importance of SUN’s goals and lessons learned, regarding the enhancement of their chances of success.