WASH’ Nutrition

ADVOCACY CAMPAIGNS
Political Dialogue & Thematic Discussion Forum
Since the Bonn Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus Conference in 2011, the link between WASH and Nutrition has been
a key area of focus of the German WASH Network’s advocacy work. In an effort to place the issue high on the international
agenda, the alliance of 20 German NGOs and its partners convened two seminars on WASH and Nutrition at the Stockholm
World Water Weeks and founded a working group on WASH and Nutrition under the umbrella of the Sustainable Sanitation
Alliance in 2012. The initiative culminated in the Bonn WASH Nutrition Forum 2015, the first international conference focused
specifically on the WASH and Nutrition Nexus. The Forum facilitated dialogue at the institutional and operational level. It
brought together relevant WASH and Nutrition experts from over 50 organizations and 23 countries, allowing an effective
mix of thematic inputs and discussions during so-called “mirror sessions”. Mirror sessions were carried out for the two key
global monitoring reports (GLAAS and the Global Nutrition Report), the two main global platforms (Sanitation and Water for
All Partnership and the SUN Movement) and the humanitarian Global Clusters for WASH and Nutrition. Participants also
heard perspectives from a country level (Burkina Faso and South Sudan), a donor (Germany) and from civil society networks
(End Water Poverty and Generation Nutrition) and a community-based organization (Progress Coordinating Trust, Zimbabwe).
The Forum came up with a set of recommendations, next steps and commitments in terms of viable operational approaches,
research, policy and advocacy issues to lead to a more integrated approach for tackling undernutrition and stunting.
Generation Nutrition was a global civil society campaign, which ran from 2014 to 2016 and was hosted by Action Against
Hunger. It campaigned for governments to bring about an end to child deaths from undernutrition. 85 partner organizations
supported the campaign, working in Burkina Faso, Czech Republic, EU, France, India, Italy, Kenya, Nepal, Philippines, Spain,
UK, US and Zimbabwe; and at the global level. A number of NGOs and coalitions specializing in water and sanitation
were members of the campaign, including End Water Poverty, WaterAid and Coalition Eau. Securing improvements in
water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) was a key aim for the campaign, as poor WASH is a major cause of undernutrition
in children. Under this theme, the campaign called on governments and other development actors to 1) invest properly in
better water, sanitation and hygiene, and 2) work towards a fuller integration of WASH, health and nutrition programmes.
One of the ways to promote this integration is for flexible funding mechanisms to be created which enable investments
across all three sectors, but under a single programme. The campaign work of Generation Nutrition included awarenessraising
for a broad audience: for World Toilet Day 2015, Generation Nutrition produced a short animated video explaining
the links between sanitation and nutrition. The video was translated into six languages. The campaign was a good example
of how WASH can be included in nutrition-oriented advocacy. The partners with expertise on WASH worked closely with
others in the coalition to ensure that the action plans for the campaign included advocacy objectives on WASH.
No Wasted Lives is a coalition formed in 2016 by USAID, UKAID, ECHO, UNICEF, and ACF to
catalyse global action in the fight against severe acute malnutrition (SAM), the deadliest form of
malnutrition. Indeed, SAM affects today over 16 million children worldwide and is responsible
for between 1 and 2 million deaths annually. The goal of No Wasted Lives is to ensure that 6
million severely malnourished children are able to gain access to lifesaving treatments every
year by 2020, which represents doubling the number of children worldwide with access to
treatment. No Wasted Lives has defined 3 clear objectives: to make SAM a priority, to discover effective ways to prevent
and treat it, and to mobilize money and maximize the effectiveness of its spending. To achieve these objectives, the
coalition will develop three key work streams: a technical accelerator (developing innovative ideas to drive forward learning
and action), a Donor Forum (for governments and other donors to unlock new health funding) and an advocacy agenda, to
promote a better understanding of SAM.
ACF is part of No Wasted Lives to scale up treatment and promote a multi-sectorial approach in the fight against SAM.
To reduce child mortality, ACF’s objective is to promote WASH in SAM responses and adopt an integrated WASH-in-NUT
approach in this campaign.
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WASH’Nutrition
A practical guidebook