Background
In September 2021, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will convene a Food Systems Summit as part of the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Rebuilding the food systems of the world will also enable
us to answer the UN Secretary-General’s call to “build back better” from COVID-19. 
The Food Systems Summit will pursue five specific objectives in support of its broader vision of delivering progress on all 17 SDGs. These five specific objectives are called the Action Tracks. Action tracks will offer multistakeholder constituencies a space to share and learn, with a view to supercharging their progress by fostering new actions and partnerships and by amplifying existing initiatives. The five action tracks are:
- Ensuring access to safe and nutritious food for all (enabling all people to be nourished and healthy, progressive realization of the right to food)
- Shifting to sustainable (and healthy) consumption patterns (promoting and creating demand for healthy and sustainable diets, reducing waste)
- Boosting nature-positive production at sufficient scale (acting on climate change, reducing emissions and increasing carbon capture, regenerating and protecting critical ecosystems and reducing food loss and energy usage, without undermining health or nutritious diets)
- Advancing equitable livelihoods and value distribution (raising incomes, distributing risk, expanding inclusion, promote full and productive employment and decent work for all)
- Building resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stress (ensuring the continued functionality of healthy and sustainable food systems)
Each action track has a chair and 2 vice-chairs (one being a youth representative). WHO is the UN anchor agency for Action Track 2. EAT Foundation is chairing Action Track 2.
The Food Systems Summit process also includes Food Systems Summit Dialogues (FSSDs), led by the organization 4SD
. The FSSDs will take place at three levels: Global Summit Dialogues will be convened alongside key global events, Member State Dialogues will be convened by national authorities in their own nations and (perhaps) regionally. Independent Dialogues
will be led by self-appointed Convenors who can be individuals or organizations. These will be independent of national authorities but will still be formally connected to the Summit.
The dialogues will contribute to discuss and identify national efforts for sustainable food systems by 2030. The dialogues will be an opportunity for exploring propositions from the different Summit workstreams within the national context. Participants that represent different stakeholder groups will work out how they intend to contribute to the sustainability and healthiness of national food systems and, ideally, make commitments for which they are accountable.
An informal Member States’ Group of Friends of the Food Systems Summit (GoFFSS) has been established and has been meeting with the Core teams of each of the five action tracks. The GoFFSS consists mostly of representatives of the Permanent Missions to the Rome-based Agencies (RBAs).
Objective
Similar to the process of the organization of the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), which was co-organized by FAO and WHO in 2014, it is important that both the more “agriculture-oriented” Permanent Missions in Rome and the Geneva Permanent Missions can contribute from the onset to this important process to ensure that the health perspective is taken into account and mainstreamed throughout the discussions and proposed solutions for food systems transformation.
Therefore an informal one-hour briefing is being organized on 12 January 2021 for Member States’ representatives about the Food Systems Summit. This briefing provides an opportunity for asking questions to the different speakers who each have a role in the FSS.
Objectives of the briefing are:
- To share information about the different processes and active groups of the Food Systems Summit;
- To encourage Geneva Permanent Missions to be actively involved in the different Action Tracks; and
- To encourage Member States to organize national food systems summit dialogues and ensure balanced attention to health issues.
Proposed agenda
Moderated by Dr Francesco Branca, Director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety (NFS)
9:00 -9:05 | Welcome and Opening- Dr Naoko Yamamoto, Assistant Director-General Universal Health Coverage/Healthier Populations |
9:05 – 9:10 | Opening Remarks – Dr Agnes Kalibata, UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the FSS |
9:10 – 9:20 | Overview of the Food Systems Summit – Dr Martin Frick, Deputy to the Special Envoy |
9:20 – 9:25 | Remarks by Food Systems Summit Advisory Committee member – Ms Gerda Verburg, Global Coordinator of the Scaling up Nutrition Movement (SUN) |
9:25 – 9:30 | Presentation on Action Track 2 – Dr Gunhild Stordalen, Founder/Executive Chair of EAT Foundation (or her representative) |
9:30 – 9:35 | Overview of Food System Summit Dialogues- Dr David Nabarro, Strategic Director of Skills, Systems & Synergies for Sustainable Development (4SD) |
9:35 – 9:55 | Discussion and Q&A |
9:55 – 10:00 | Summary and Closing Remarks – Dr Francesco Branca, Director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety |
This briefing is for representatives of the Geneva Permanent Missions and/or capitals and an invitation has been sent to the Missions including a protected zoom link.
Register
A representative of Geneva Permanent Missions can also confirm attendance with mahyl@who.int. A protected zoom link to the webinar will be sent.
Translation in the six UN languages will be provided.
