Making food systems sustainable, resilient and inclusive, and healthy diets accessible and affordable for everyone is paramount to building back better from COVID-19

14 July 2020, Washington/Rome – Following the launch of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020 report (SOFI 2020), FAO North America and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) hosted the webinar Transforming Food Systems for Affordable, Healthy and Sustainable Diets for All: A High-Level Discussion on the Key Findings of the 2020 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World Report.

The webinar saw the participation of the FAO’s Director General QU Dongyu; IFPRI’s Director-General Johan Swinnen; Jim McGovern, Congressman and Founder and Co-Chair of the Bipartisan House Hunger Caucus; Jeffery Sachs, Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and SDG Advocate for UN Secretary-General António Guterres; and FAO North America’s Director Vimlendra Sharan.

“We are not only off track to eradicate hunger, food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition by 2030, but we also need to redouble our efforts given the challenges brought by COVID-19,” said Qu.

The impacts of the COVID-19’s pandemic on food security were also highlighted by IFPRI’s Director-General and Congressman Jim McGovern.

“The declining trend in hunger and food insecurity from the 1990s throughout the 2000s came to an end five years ago. What is even more worrying is that the reversal of this positive evolution of the first part of the 21st century already occurred before COVID-19. COVID-19 is making matters much worse for many of the poorest people in the world,” said IFPRI’s Director-General.

For his part, Congressman McGovern noted: “I focus a great deal of my time in Congress to end hunger in America. The COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying economic shockwaves have intensified hunger and food insecurity in my country to a level that I have never seen in my lifetime. We need to take bold and decisive action now if we are going to avoid or mitigate the worst impacts of COVID-19 on hunger worldwide.” 

In his remarks, Jeffery Sachs cautioned: Unless we get a grip on economic inequality, we face the “paradox of incredible basic deprivation in a world of wealth.”

“SOFI 2020 is a dramatic, path-breaking and important report, outlining the path that we need to take. We have the know-how, the means, the wealth and the capacity to end poverty and hunger and move to safe land use and energy systems,” added Sachs.

Affordable, healthy diets for all

The participants also reiterated the need to transform our food systems to reduce the cost of nutritious food and ensure that everyone can afford a healthy diet all over the world.

“Even the cheapest healthy diets are unaffordable for more than three billion people in the world,” noted the FAO Director-General.

Shifting towards healthy diets that include sustainability considerations can also protect people from non-communicable diseases while reducing environmental degradation, contributing to Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, remarked Qu.

The webinar included a technical presentation by FAO’s Chief Economist Maximo Torero on the SOFI 2020 report’s findings as well as a panel discussion with: Anna Herforth, Tufts Affiliate and Senior Research Associate at the Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard Chan School of Public Health; Anna Lartey, Director of Nutrition and Food Systems Division at FAO; and Marie Ruel, Director of Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division at IFPRI. 

The session highlighted that making food systems sustainable, resilient and inclusive, while making healthy diets accessible and affordable for everyone is paramount to building back better from COVID-19, and getting back on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.  

“The purpose of the SOFI report is not to point fingers but to highlight the state of play and suggest possible pathways for eliminating hunger and malnutrition,” said Vimlendra Sharan, Director of FAO North America in his closing remarks.

Watch the webinar.