FAO unveiled today its new comprehensive COVID-19 Response and Recovery Programme, aimed at preventing a global food emergency during and after the COVID-19 pandemic while working on medium to long-term development response for food security and nutrition.

Tuesday, July 14, 2020 - 10:00 am to 11:30 am (EDT)

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The 2020 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report highlights the most recent and authoritative estimates of the extent of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition around the world. The Report calls for a transformative change in food systems to ensure healthy and affordable diets for all, a sine qua non for eliminating hunger and malnutrition. 

As the 2030 deadline looms, SOFI 2020 gauges whether #ZeroHunger remains achievable by tracking countries' performance and trajectory to offer a tiered assessment of the likelihood of success. 
Join this high-level discussion co-organized by FAO North America and IFPRI with distinguished speakers, including Members of the US Congress and the Directors-General of FAO and IFPRI, on the report’s key findings as well as the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global food and nutrition security.

Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions.

The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report puts a spotlight on diet quality as a critical link between food security and nutrition. Meeting SDG 2 targets will only be possible if people have enough food to eat and if what they are eating is nutritious and affordable. The report also introduces new analysis of the cost and affordability of healthy diets around the world, by region and in different development contexts. It presents valuations of the health and climate-change costs associated with current food consumption patterns, as well as the potential cost savings if food consumption patterns were to shift towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations. The report then concludes with a discussion of the policies and strategies to transform food systems to ensure affordable healthy diets, as part of the required efforts to end both hunger and all forms of malnutrition.

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Securing healthy diets for the billions who cannot afford them would save trillions in costs

July 13, 2020 - 4:00 PM (CET)

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The report contains the most recent and authoritative estimates of the extent of hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition around the world. As the 2030 deadline looms, SOFI 2020 gauges whether #ZeroHunger remains achievable. The Report tracks countries' performance and trajectory to offer a tiered assessment of the likelihood of success. 

What's new?

  • Higher level of accuracy thanks to the availability of fresh datasets, including new population figures, new food balance sheets and new data for China;

  • Preliminary assessment of COVID-19’s impact on food security, based on the latest global economic outlooks;

  • In-depth analysis of the ability of food systems to deliver quality diets to the poorest and the most vulnerable;

  • Policy recommendations to transform current food systems 


The event is organized by the report’s authors, FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO and can be followed in all official UN languages.

The FAO Council today approved a series of measures proposed by the Director-General QU Dongyu to modernize the UN agency and make it more efficient and effective. Composed of 49 member countries and executive organ of the FAO Conference, the Council met virtually for the first time in FAO’s history due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
EcorNaturaSí and the Mountain Partnership Secretariat, hosted by FAO, today joined forces to better the lives of people living in rural areas and fragile ecosystems, such as mountains, forests and islands, and develop more inclusive food and agriculture systems.

UNSCN Nutrition 45 – Nutrition in a Digital World 

This year, the 45th edition of UNSCN Nutrition, examines the complexity of the digital world for improved nutrition. Digital technology, in and of itself, cannot fix the world’s food and nutrition problems, nor mend its dysfunctional food systems. However, once improving nutrition is deemed a priority, digital technologies are important tools. The potential of digital technologies to improve nutrition is considerable, but so are the risks that these technologies might entail.

Most of the articles we present in UNSCN Nutrition 45 consider the potential-risk duality in a range of food-system perspectives– from food production, transformation and distribution to digital food marketing and retail; from behavioural change and capacity-building, including through social media, to the generation, processing and use of data; and from the protection of vulnerable groups to issues of inequality and human rights.

We chose the theme of UNSCN Nutrition 45 – Nutrition in a Digital World long before we had even heard of COVID-19. Digitalization has been playing a key role ever since, enabling vital parts of the world economy to continue functioning, allowing us to remain connected and giving us access to numerous public services, including those directly related to the pandemic. Another wake-up call on the need to enhance our knowledge and further the debate on the potential benefits and adverse impacts of innovative digital technologies in helping to achieve sustainable healthy diets and progressively realize the right to adequate food.

The editorial team (pictures)

 

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The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, QU Dongyu, today welcomed a €15 million contribution from the European Union to fight the Desert Locust upsurge in East Africa as a new wave of locusts is emerging in the region.
The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), QU Dongyu, today presented to the FAO Council a second set of measures to reform the UN agency. These follow those approved by the Council in December 2019, aimed at making FAO more agile, efficient and accountable. Qu also outlined the current and future challenges facing food security and agriculture at large, and his vision to respond to them.