المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

I am the Global Coordinator for Children and Youth at UNEP MGFC and actively involved in the 10YFP initiative on SCP. On World Environment Day , UNEP launched its Think.Eat.Save campaign which essentially strives to engage all stakeholders in reducing food wastage simply by being aware about the problem. About the one-third of the world's food production is either lost or wasted while thousands , especially young children , die of hunger each day. There is something essentially flawed about the supply chain --- from the farm to the fork delivery mechanism must be made more efficient. The developing nations where most of the food gets produced , supply more than what is required to the global north , for pure economic reasons . This results in tremendous wastage . Urban societies produce copious amounts of waste , many times higher than rural and agrarian societies . Distribution of food needs to equitable in sync with the population and not skewed towards economic profit.

Developing nations also require proper supply chain equipment and there needs to be investments from developed nations into this sector to ensure that food doesnot get wasted while in transit. 

Civil society has a defining role to play in controlling food loss and waste generation, especially by controlling its consumption patterns. According to statistics from most surveys,  our region’s main economies, rank in the top-ten worldwide in terms of per capita solid waste generation. The gross urban waste generation quantity from Middle East countries has crossed 150 million tons per annum. A majority of this ends up in landfills which is not only costly but also a loss of recycling opportunity. By promoting sustainable consumption patterns within civil society we can positively impact the quality and quantity of residential waste which in most nations constitutes the lion share of total waste.