FAO partners with UN Food Gardens to galvanize youth leaders as champions of food security and nutrition

“Community urban agriculture can greatly impact urban food systems and help achieve Zero Hunger,” informed Carla Mucavi, Director of the FAO Liaison Office in New York, at an event entitled “Food Security and Access to Nutritiously Adequate Food; How Urban Food Production Contributes to The Achievement of SDG2” on 8 August in New York.

Organized by the United Nations Food Garden in partnership with FAO, the event invited over 100 members of the Youth Leadership Council (YLC), a NYC Parks GreenThumb Programme, from all five boroughs of New York City spanning various socio-economic backgrounds to the United Nations to discuss Food Security and Nutrition in urban environments.

By bringing together youth and representatives from the international community, the event aimed to encourage young people to play an active role in locally implementing the SDGs and supporting, through their actions, healthier diets in line with the Decade of Action on Nutrition 2016-2025.

The event commenced with a welcome reception in the UN Food Garden for the YLC representatives, followed by an interactive panel discussion featuring YLC student representatives as well as development practitioners from both the UN system and the local community.

Delivering the opening remarks for the panel portion of the event, Mucavi stressed the importance of youth in the move towards more sustainable food production. “You might think that hunger is too big a problem for you to solve alone, but together we are greater than hunger,” Mucavi said.

The UN Food Gardens is a voluntary UN staff initiative that is establishing food gardens on the premises of the UN Headquarters. Its aim is to help the UN translate global priorities related to sustainable food systems and greener cities into action and lead by example.