World Environment Day 2020: Healthy ecosystems are fundamental for preventing global diseases and ensuring food security

A better understanding of the role of ecosystems and biodiversity in addressing diseases and other threats to people’s lives, health, and livelihoods will enable us to overcome the COVID-19 challenges and prevent the re-emergence of such devastating outbreaks in the future. This was the key take-away from the virtual celebration of World Environment Day 2020, organized by FAO today.
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Why has COVID-19 turned into a structural crisis in the Pacific?

Eriko Hibi, FAO Sub-Regional Coordinator for the Pacific and Representative to thirteen Pacific States discusses COVID-19 pandemic’s impact in the Pacific, and plans to rebuild.
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Food Systems Dashboard Webinar

5 June 2020 - 9AM EDT/1PM UTC/GMT

Register here

The Food Systems Dashboard is a unique holistic resource intended for policymakers, non-governmental organisations, businesses, civil society leaders, and other actors to enable timely visualisation of national food systems, understand the interconnections across multiple sectors, perform comparisons with other countries, identify key challenges, and prioritise actions.

Join the webinar to learn more about the Dashboard and how it can help inform your work.

Speakers include:

  • Jessica Fanzo (Johns Hopkins University)
  • Lawrence Haddad (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrtion)
  • Maximo Torero (Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N.)
  • Dave Tschirley (Michigan State University)
  • Anna Herforth (Harvard University)
  • Ty Beal (Global Alliance for Improved Nutrtion)
  • Quinn Marshall (Johns Hopkins University)
  • Rebecca McLaren (Johns Hopkins University)
  • Andy Jones (University of Michigan)

Webinar link to follow.

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Thirty countries will benefit as Global Environment Facility funds FAO-led projects

All projects were climate-proofed and will be executed in partnership with and co-financed by the governments of Albania, Algeria, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Georgia, Guinea, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Madagascar, Mauritania, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Tuvalu, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Yemen.
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FAO Food Price Index falls to 17-month low

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks international prices of the most commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 162.5 points in May, 1.9 percent below the previous month and marking its lowest reading since December 2018.
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FAO Food Price Index falls to 17-month low

The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks international prices of the most commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 162.5 points in May, 1.9 percent below the previous month and marking its lowest reading since December 2018.
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Joint questionnaire on COVID-19 and human rights

Deadline for submission: 19 June 2020

https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Poverty/Pages/callCovid19.aspx 

Background

Several Special Procedure mandate holders will focus their forthcoming thematic reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council or the General Assembly on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the enjoyment of human rights. The questionnaire is meant to assist the human rights experts to obtain information and elaborate comprehensive recommendations on the measures taken by national, federal and local governments to protect their population and ensure the enjoyment of human rights, including particular groups at risk of discrimination or social exclusion, such as older persons, persons in situation of homelessness, women, children, persons with disabilities people of African Descent, domestic and migrant workers, LGBT persons, persons subjected to contemporary forms of slavery, and people living in poverty or experiencing poverty as a consequence of the crisis, as well as indigenous peoples1.

In order to facilitate responding to questions by Special Procedures, a joint questionnaire has been developed including a list of common questions and specific thematic questions responding to information required by participating mandates.

Who should respond to the questionnaire/call for contributions?

The mandate holders invite States, regional and local governments, international and regional organizations, National Human Rights Institutions, equality bodies, and civil society organizations, UN agencies, funds and programmes and other interested stakeholders to share relevant information for their respective reports.

What can be sent?

The mandate holders welcome all relevant contributions and submissions which can be drafted in response to the questions. Reports which have already been drafted on relevant topics may also be submitted for consideration.

How and where to submit inputs

You can download the joint questionnaire here:
WORD: English | French | Spanish

Responses and submissions should be sent to registry@ohchr.org by 19 June 2020. When responding please use the heading: Response to joint questionnaire of special procedures.

In order to facilitate processing and ensure accessibility, submissions in Word format in English, French or Spanish are appreciated. It is kindly requested to limit responses and submissions to 4,500 words and to include hyperlinks to relevant documents, statistical data, public regulations and legislation providing more detailed information.

How inputs will be used

All responses and submissions received in accessible format will be published on the webpages of participating Special Procedures, except if confidentiality of the submission is explicitly requested. Submissions received in non-accessible PDF format will not be published, but will be made available upon request.

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FAO Director-General appeals to donors to scale up response and ease plight of farmers and fishers in Yemen

The Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, QU Dongyu, has appealed to donors for $100 million in urgent aid to ease the plight of desperate farmers, herders, fishers and their families in Yemen.
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WEBINAR: COVID-19 and Sustainable Food Systems – Responses and innovations to tackle vulnerabilities and build back better

3rd June at 2:30 PM CEST
Register here

What critical measures are required to both combat the #COVID19 crisis and to build sustainable food systems? Can responses to the #COVID19 crisis catalyse transformation toward sustainable food systems?

The COVID-19 pandemic poses unprecedented challenges for food systems worldwide - but also enormous opportunities. It is a wakeup call that has highlighted the need for holistic approaches to both address the shock brought by the pandemic, but also to address the vulnerabilities of our unsustainable food systems. To build sustainable food systems we will need more coordinated, more integrated measures – a food systems approach.

Join us for a discussion with key experts and policymakers who will provide insights on key measures to both combat the pandemic’s impact and to build sustainable food systems.

A keynote speech by the WHO Special Envoy for COVID-19, Dr. David Nabarro, will be preceded by the presentation of findings from two pieces of research from INRAe and UNSCN. Following, we will hear from practical response examples from Costa Rica and Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state.

Vice-minister Ana Cristina Quirós Soto of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Costa Rica will explain how the country has implemented a battery of measures in coordination with a range of food systems actors to guarantee workplace safety, access and availability to healthy food and financial support to livelihoods all while emphasizing the need for urgent progress on climate and environmental targets.

In Brazil, the main advisory bodies on food related matters, known as Councils of Food Security and Nutrition (CONSEAs), were created in the 2000s with an innovative multi-stakeholder architecture. The CONSEA of Rio Grande do Sul state has been responding to the food and nutrition security crisis brought on by COVID-19 through four areas of action. With closed schools, children’s access to food has been compromised. We will learn how CONSEA’s structure has facilitated a coordinated, agile response.

To close, practitioners from FAO, IFAD, UNEP and WWF will kick off a discussion highlighting why a systems-based, collaborative response is essential to both counter the vulnerabilities highlighted by COVID-19 as well as to build sustainable food systems.

Confirmed speakers:

  • Vice-minister Ana Cristina Quirós Soto, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, Costa Rica
  • Dr. David Nabarro, WHO Director-General's Special Envoy on COVID-19
  • Potira V. Preiss, counselor of the Council of Food Security and Nutrition (CONSEA) of Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil
  • Dr. Yuna Chiffoleau, Research Director, INRAe
  • Dr. Stieneke Oenema, Coordinator, UNSCN
  • Margarita Astrálaga, Director of the Environment, Climate, Gender and Social Inclusion Division (ECG), IFAD
  • Fatima Hachem, Senior Nutrition Officer, FAO
  • Martina Otto, Head of Cities Unit, UNEP

Moderator: Brent Loken, Food Science Lead, WWF

Aimed primarily at regional and national decision-makers focusing on food or elements of the food system, the webinar is open to anyone with an interest in building sustainable food systems as a response to COVID-19 through a systems approach, and the role of inter-sectoral coordination and collaboration.

Register and submit your own answers in this participatory webinar here: https://bit.ly/3c2W4aE

The webinar is part of a Series of webinars on the Food Systems Approach in Practice promoted by members of the One Planet Network Sustainable Food Systems Programme (SFS Programme), a global multi-stakeholder platform to support countries in the transition towards sustainable food systems.

 

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#WorldFoodSafetyDay Twitter chat

Tuesday 2 June 2020, 15:00 CEST

On Tuesday 2 June 2020, the UN Food Systems Summit and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will host a Twitter chat in observance of World Food Safety Day. Anyone with a Twitter account can join the conversation, which will be led by @FoodSystems around the hashtags #WorldFoodSafetyDay and #WFSDchat.

In view of next year’s UN Food Systems Summit, the online chat will look at how food safety fits into food systems, as ensuring food is safe requires a whole-of-food-systems approach, involving everyone in the supply chain and the consumer. Questions pertinent to current global issues will be raised, allowing Twitter users to share their views and experiences to ensure food is safe amid new challenges. The discussion will also delve into the importance of food safety in promoting food and nutrition security.

Questions

Tune in to Twitter on June 2 at 15:00 CEST to take part.

  1. Why is food safety everyone’s business?
  2. How is food safety affected by emerging global challenges? (COVID-19, climate change, migration etc)?
  3. How can we ensure that food safety remains a priority in times of COVID-19?
  4. Why is food safety important to achieve food and nutrition security?
  5. How can consumers make sure that food is safe?
  6. How does food safety fit into food systems?

Use the hashtag #WFSDchat in your answers.

Useful links:

World Food Safety Day: http://www.fao.org/fao-who-codexalimentarius/world-food-safety-day/about/en/

IFAD: https://www.ifad.org/en/

UN Food Systems Summit: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/food-systems-summit-2021/

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FAO, GAIN and Johns Hopkins Alliance for a Healthier World launch new online dashboard to inform better food policy

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, and The Johns Hopkins Alliance for a Healthier World today launched a new easy-to-navigate online tool designed to help decision makers understand their food systems, identify their levers of change, and decide which ones to pull.
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NUTRITION 2020 LIVE ONLINE

1-4 June 2020

Register here

 

NUTRITION 2020 LIVE ONLINE is a rich, interactive experience that you can join from anywhere in the world, offering great content in the form of lectures, scientific sessions, satellite programs, virtual abstract presentations, virtual exhibits, and more. Connect with a global audience through panel discussions, live Q& A and interaction for selected sessions.  Put on your comfiest clothes, grab your favorite beverage and healthy snacks, and find your seat (you’re guaranteed the best seat in the house!), and settle in for 4 days of nutrition learning and collaboration like you’ve never experienced before!

NUTRITION 2020 LIVE ONLINE is completely free and supported by the ASN Foundation.

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