WUN in collaboration with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) commemorated World Food Day 2019 on the theme “healthy diets for a zero hunger world”, to raise awareness, share experiences and plan for future activities. The event brought together representatives from various sectors, including President of the UN General Assembly, Permanent Representative of Zambia, Deputy Permanent Representative of Japan, Director of the FAO Liaison Office at the UN, Professor of Nutrition from NYU, a professional chef, representative from World Economic Forum as well as farmers.
WUN was represented by the Executive Director Nata Menabde, who presented the staggering numbers of people affected by malnutrition and stressed the importance of living up to the promises made in many resolutions and declarations, considering that all forms of malnutrition have immediate lifelong and inter-generational consequences that jeopardize the development and well-being of people, communities and nations. She also emphasized that ensuring access to a healthy diet is a double duty action that includes interventions, programmes and policies that have the potential to simultaneously reduce the risk or burden of both undernutrition (including wasting, stunting and micronutrient deficiencies) and overweight, obesity or diet-related NCDs (including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers).
Participants agreed that Member States, UN Agencies, Civil Society organizations, private sector companies, researchers and other grass roots movements should all invest more in nutrition and publicly declare what concrete and smart policy changes they will make in different sectors. They urged companies to stop the practices of marketing of foods high in sugar, salt and fat to children and to stop violating the Code on marketing of breastmilk substitutes. In a video message the UN Secretary General announced that he hopes to convene a major Food Systems Summit in 2021, as part of the Decade of Action to deliver the SDGs. In 2020, WHO will actively participate in a Global Nutrition Summit hosted by Japan.