FAO.org

Rome, Italy

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) focused on further collaboration towards strengthening policies and legal frameworks that ensure food is safe and healthy for all.

The MoU builds on the FAO-UCLA partnership agreement signed in 2019 to “work on issues at the intersection of food security, law and policy”, and further strengthens FAO’s commitment to work with strategic partners to "end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition in all its forms, including promoting nutritious food and increasing access to healthy diets" as envisaged in FAO's 2022-2031 Strategic Framework.

The FAO and UCLA School of Law partnership will be implemented under the Vision and Strategy for FAO's Work in Nutrition, which calls on developing capacities to support FAO Members and stakeholders in implementing policies and laws, practices, investments and innovative actions at scale across agrifood systems to enable healthy diets for all, and will leverage the research and scholarship expertise of the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law. Specifically, FAO and the Resnick Center are supporting FAO Members to achieve this goal through outreach initiatives as well as development and implementation of regulatory solutions to strengthen different areas of food policy and legislation, including:

• food safety and quality legislation;
• food fraud policy and legislation;
• agrifood systems policy and legislation;
• digital agriculture and e-commerce of food and agriculture products;
• food information; and
• other exchange and cooperation programmes related to food law.

Blaise Kuemlangan, Chief of the Development Law Service at FAO, highlighted the importance of strategic partnerships to provide technical expertise in the development of impartial, independent legal instruments, necessary for achieving sustainable agrifood security. "We are proud to continue our collaboration with UCLA, which has already resulted in the development of a background paper on International and national regulatory strategies to counter food fraud. This paper explores the different dimensions of food fraud, including complexities of food fraud: challenges for international and national regulation; international regulatory frameworks; and strategies to regulate food fraud at the national level, and is an important resource for FAO Members. We look forward to the future actions envisioned through this important partnership".

Michael Roberts, Executive Director of the Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy at UCLA agrees: "The Resnick Center is honored and excited to use its law and policy expertise to elevate this partnership to a new strategic level. We will work to help FAO advance its outreach to developing countries and to reach sustainable development goals, and forward the Center's mission to improve health and quality of life for humans and the planet."

Under this MoU, FAO and UCLA Law are strengthening their collaboration towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely Zero Hunger (SDG 2), Good Health and Well-Being (SDG 3), Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8), Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12), Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (SDG 16) and Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17).