FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia

Regional Conference on Food Systems Sustainability

İstanbul (Türkiye), Hybrid Event, 07/03/2023 - 08/03/2023

09.00 – 17.00 GMT+3 (Ankara time)

The 13 Member Nations of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) face multiple challenges regarding agrifood systems including unbalanced diets, increased incidence of issues related to food safety, transboundary animal and plant disease outbreaks, and significant levels of food loss and waste.

With a view to tackling these challenges, the BSEC member states established a Regional Cooperation Centre for Sustainable Food Systems (BSEC-CSFS) in November 2020 in Ankara, Türkiye under a project (GCP/SEC/019/TUR) implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) through the FAO-Türkiye Partnership Programme (FTPP).

In this context, BSEC-CSFS is organizing a regional conference dedicated to food systems sustainability in the BSEC region, to be held in Istanbul, Türkiye on 7–8 March 2023.

The conference will  review the current state of agrifood systems in BSEC member states, deliberate on the key findings and lessons from recent national studies, explore policy interventions and next steps required to move agrifood systems towards sustainability, and agree on the establishment of a regional network for key actors operating in the field of sustainable agrifood systems.

The regional conference will take place at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Şişli, Istanbul, with the possibility of virtual participation. The working language of the conference will be English with simultaneous translation into Russian and Turkish.