The UN selects Afshan Khan as coordinator for the Scaling Up Nutrition Movement

By: WE Staff | Tuesday, 21 February 2023

Afshan Khan, an Indo-Canadian, has been selected as the movement's coordinator. The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement is a group of 65 countries and four Indian states that uses innovative methods and instruments to eliminate all forms of malnutrition by 2030.

Afshan will manage the network of SUN Government Focal Points, the Movement's stakeholders, and its funders in her new role as director of the SUN Movement Secretariat, according to a UN press release.

She will work to ensure the SUN strategy's global implementation by building partnerships and mobilising support for the mission of eliminating all forms of malnutrition.

She will follow Dutchwoman Gerda Verburg, whose leadership of the SUN Movement was praised by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Afshan started working for Unicef in Mozambique in 1989; she is currently the region's director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

According to a UN statement, she has held the positions of Unicef Representative in Jamaica, Associate Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Director of Emergency Programs, Director of Public-Sector Alliances and Resource Mobilization, and Director of Emergency Programs.

She has contributed to initiatives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, Kenya, and Colombia. Her experience with the UN Development Group, the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee for Humanitarian Affairs (IASC) in Geneva has given her broad understanding of the UN.

Afshan also has extensive knowledge of international civil society groups as the previous CEO of Women for Women International. Afshan was born and raised in India and has dual citizenship with Canada and the UK. She holds both a master's degree in public policy from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies and a bachelor's degree in political science from McGill University. The SUN Movement was created in 2010.