How do we ensure access to healthy food for all within planetary boundaries? This was the question central to two high-level events at the 71st United Nations General Assembly in New York in which NCD Alliance participated. 

 

Organic farmer and Executive Director of ACT+ Brazil, Paula Johns, impressed on Member States and UN agencies at an Event organized to galvanise commitments against the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-2025 that “as long as it is more profitable to produce ultra-processed products than real food, we won't achieve food and nutrition security”.

 

Her intervention followed statements from a variety of Member States, including the first Lady of Zambia, WHO, FAO, the World Bank and civil society representatives collectively highlighting the need to urgently scale up action to address malnutrition in all its forms and as WHO Director-General put it “take a hard look at global food system” which is failing people and planet. Read more here.

 

NCD Alliance also co-hosted an event organized by the EAT Foundation in collaboration with the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs which explored the challenge and opportunity that urban food systems pose to achieving food and nutrition security and sovereignty, improve health, address climate change and reduce poverty.

 

The event highlighted effective public policies and other solutions to address food waste, increase public procurement of healthy, organic food, scale-up urban agriculture and reduce consumption of energy-intensive products such as meat, dairy and ultra-processed products, which not only impact population health but also have environmental externalities. A recording of the event can be accessed here