Side event: Aligning agriculture and food processing related policies to enhance healthy sustainable diets
Advancing the Implementation of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition
Aim
The aim of the side event is to foster better understanding of the intersectoral linkages and the multistakeholder engagement for impactful implementation of food processing related policies to enhance healthy diets in specific country settings. This will be done by presenting and discussing valuable country experience addressing different forms of malnutrition including undernutrition and overweight and obesity.
Agenda 
Participants are welcomed by the CFS Chair, followed by brief framing presentations highlighting, i) The UN Decade of Action on Nutrition call for global food system change, ii) The critical role of food system transformation in Africa. Then, a Panel of country representatives and other CFS stakeholders are invited to share their policy/programmatic experience in improving the quality of processed foods. Argentina’s success story in eliminating industrially produced trans-fats in food and Kenya’s approach in making accessible nutritious mixed-food for young children revaluing traditional food crops will be shared. This will be followed by an interactive discussion about the needed engagement of different stakeholders, as well as the linkages with agricultural policy and the need for an investment shift in ensuring the production and accessibility of healthy ingredients for processed foods.
Background
Under the global umbrella of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-2025, coherent and innovative actions covering the entire food system – from production to consumption – are called for to ensure access to healthy diets for all that are produced in a sustainable way. In recent decades, also many low- and middle-income countries have undergone a drastic transition in diets and burden of disease. This includes a shift from consuming traditional diets often healthier and nutrient-rich, to a diet that is high in foods that have been transformed and processed in one way or the other, contributing to an increase in overweight, obesity and diet related noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in all regions of the world.
Organizing partners
The side-event is co-convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa (IFNA) / Japan International Cooperation Agency, and the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency.
More about CFS 45
The Committee on World Food Security (CFS) will hold its forty-fifth Session from 15 to 19 October 2018 at FAO Headquarters in Rome.
Two nutrition relevant highlights on the agenda include:
- On 15 October, under agenda item “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018”, the Committee will discuss the 2018 edition of the jointly by FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO produced report that focuses on building climate resilience for food security and nutrition.
- On 18 October, the CFS will discuss and take a decision on the Terms of Reference (TOR) for the preparation of the CFS Voluntary Guidelines on Food System and Nutrition. These TOR were developed in an open and inclusive process during the past intersessional period. The Terms of Reference suggest to follow a comprehensive and systemic approach to food systems aiming at addressing the existing policy fragmentation between food, agriculture and health sectors. The TOR responds to the guidance provided by CFS Plenary at CFS44, in the context of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition.