Organizer
World Health Summit and WHO Department of Nutrition and Food Safety
Registration
No prior registration is needed, the event can be watched online. You can find the link of this session (WS27) in the online program of the World Health Summit. The entry link is available in the online program after clicking on the session. Access is possible via PC, tablet, or smartphone. Interactive format through chat. Q&A function, screen and document sharing.
Background
In 2022, the world is faced with the competing, and compounding, threats of COVID-19, climate change, economic shocks, and ongoing conflicts. These threats have caused unprecedented levels of need with disrupted supply chains, food price spikes, and crop shortages testing already fragile food systems. The resulting food crisis exacerbates all forms of malnutrition. From increasing states of undernutrition, childhood wasting, and stunting as thousands are pushed into states of hunger; to rising levels of micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity as economic shocks make healthy diets unaffordable for more than 3 billion people and highly processed foods, which are often high in unhealthy fats, sugars and salt, become economic necessities.
Food security is defined as when all people have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences. While urgent action is needed to overcome the immediate state of food insecurity and ensure food availability, it is also essential to apply lessons from the past in the dangers of a siloed focus on calories at the expense of providing adequate, nutritionally balanced food and working towards long term accessibility by building resilient food systems. This vision requires action across food, health, social protection, trade, and education sectors, and effective food system governance to ensure the immediate and long-term food and nutrition needs of populations are met. Without action, food security and malnutrition threaten to exacerbate global threats, driving food systems’ contribution to climate change and inciting states of conflict.
Objectives
This workshop aims to explore the current challenges to food security and nutrition posed by global threats, innovative and evidence-based solutions to meet immediate needs, and long-term solutions to build resilient food systems to deliver healthy diets for all.
Chair and moderator
- Francesco Branca – Director, Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, World Health Organization
Speakers
- Mamunur Rahman Malik – Mission and Representative for Somalia, World Health Organization, Somalia
- Purnima Menon, Senior Director for Food and Nutrition Policy, CGIAR and Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Institute (IFPRI), United States of America
- Shawn Baker – Chief Nutritionist, USAID, United States of America
- Silvia Bender – State Secretary, Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture (BMEL), Germany
- Valerie Guarnieri – Assistant Executive Director, World Food Programme, Italy
- Caroline Meledo – Director, Bayer AG, Consumer Health Division, Environmental Social Governance (ESG), Public Affairs, Science & Sustainability, Switzerland
- Florian Westphal – CEO, Save the Children, Germany