FAO’s Framework for the Urban Food Agenda: A holistic approach to ensuring sustainable development.

With unprecedented levels of urban population growth and with almost 80% of all food that is produced already consumed within urban areas, fostering resilient and economically prosperous food systems, integrated across landscapes and based on multi-stakeholder, multi-scalar and multi-sector collaboration, will be key to supporting more sustainable urbanization processes. The provision of a wide range of ecosystem services and goods including food, timber, freshwater and labour, that place social justice, ecological integrity, climate resilience and regional economic development at the centre of urban policies and planning will be essential. Investment in food system architecture and related soft infrastructure is also crucial to facilitate food flows and to strengthen rural-urban linkages.

The FAO Framework for the Urban Food Agenda aims to:

  • Guide the implementation of an urban food policy agenda that leverages untapped potential to drive sustainable food consumption and production and addresses food insecurity and malnutrition in urban areas
  • Define FAO’s guiding principles and engagement in relation to the changing food security and nutrition needs associated with urbanization and urban development, advocating for more inclusive place-based approaches that promote more equal access to sufficient, safe, nutritious and adequate food and create meaningful and secure jobs and business opportunities for small-scale food and non food-actors
  • Delineate FAO’s value-added contributions to the New Urban Agenda and to the 2030 Agenda through the provision of more effective and coordinated support that connects urban food dynamics with territorial development approaches

Launch event

Full document

Brief

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3rd meeting in the Global Action Network on Sustainable Food from the Oceans and Inland Waters for Food Security and Nutrition

6 March 2019
Bergen, Norway

This meeting is a follow up of the 1st meeting (5 July 2018) and the 2nd meeting (18 October 2018) where inputs were collected in order to develop a Mission Statement, a Concept Document, and an Action Plan.

This meeting will look at the elements of food security (access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food, meeting dietary needs and food preferences) and:

  • Discuss/exchange challenges, available resources/ science and knowledge gaps
  •  Exchange/ elaborate on possible actions and SMART-commitments
  • Identify relationships between actions/ SMART-commitment's and the CFS recommendations and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)
  • Discuss ways to network towards common goals, including identifying measurable actions A "Gaining and sharing document" is prepared to facilitate the discussions.

More information available on the Global Action Network webpage

Sign up to the meeting by sending an email to: foodfromtheocean@nfd.dep.no 

Kindly register no later than 1st of March 2019.

Invitation 3rd meeting Global Action Network

 

 

 

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Italian President Mattarella receives leaders of the three Rome-based United Nations agencies

FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, IFAD President, Gilbert F. Houngbo, and WFP Executive Director, David Beasley, met the Italian head of state at his official residence, the Quirinal Palace in Rome.
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Candidates for the post of FAO Director-General announced

Five candidates have been presented by FAO Member Countries for the post of FAO Director-General to be elected in June 2019, the agency announced. The five candidates, each nominated by his/her government, are listed in alphabetical order by country: Médi Moungui (Cameroon), Qu Dongyu (China), Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle (France), Davit Kirvalidze (Georgia) and Ramesh Chand (India).
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Nutrition News – Issue 1, 2019

In an effort to present nutrition related news at the global and country level, UNSCN and the UNN Secretariats are teaming up to produce the first comprehensive overview of recent developments supported and/or coordinated by the UN system.

The first issue for 2019 edition includes:

  • Optimizing human health and environmental sustainability
  • Increasing commitments to the Nutrition Decade
  • Outcomes of the International Symposium on Understanding the Double Burden of Malnutrition for Effective Interventions
  • Reinforcing the collective mindset for nutrition in Liberia
  • Burkina Faso's Common Nutrition Narrative emblematic of new climate for increased harmonization of UN support
  • Prime Minister of the Comoros endorses the decision to map nutrition stakeholders and actions following a study visit with Chad
  • Obituary - In memory of Dr. Elisabet Helsing

PUBLICATIONS and a CALENDAR OF NUTRITION RELATED EVENTS

You can access you copy here. Photo credits @WFP Liberia/John Monibah

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Shining the spotlight on “life below water”

World Wildlife Day 2019, which falls on 3 March, focuses on marine species and aligns closely with the Sustainable Development Goal 14 - Life below water. It is an opportunity to raise awareness about the breathtaking diversity of marine wildlife, the benefits it brings to our everyday lives as well as ways to ensure that it can continue to do so for generations to come.
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New UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration offers unparalleled opportunity for job creation, food security and addressing climate change

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, declared today by the UN General Assembly, aims to massively scale up the restoration of degraded and destroyed ecosystems as a proven measure to fight the climate crisis and enhance food security, water supply and biodiversity.
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