The World Health Organization (WHO) has opened a space for a series of Health talks aimed at contributing to proposed Food Systems Summit Dialogues that have been advanced by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres - and World Food Safety Day events will make a key contribution to these discussions. 

The Health talks are a response by WHO’s Department of Nutrition and Food Safety to the Secretary-General’s request for inclusive and wide-ranging discussions and debates in preparation for September’s Food Systems Summit, a global, multi stakeholder effort to contribute to the Decade of Action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Three World Food Safety Day events will be available for viewing on the Health talks website on 7 June:

09:00 GMT (11:00 CET) Food safety in the context of sustainable food systems

A webinar organized by the Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to discuss the evolving context of food production, trade, and consumption

11:00 GMT (13:00 CET) World Food Safety Day: Safe food now for a healthy tomorrow

The official FAO/WHO World Food Safety Day event, which includes discussion on the role of science in food safety with the two organizations’ Chief Scientists

15:00 GMT (17:00 CET/11:00 EST)One Health: Food safety for all

A discussion between the food advocacy organization, FoodTank and various food professionals, including Tom Heilandt from the Codex Secretariat & Dr Francesco Branca from WHO

Together we make food safe: One health approach webinar on June 3 will be available subsequently for viewing.

The Health Talks will take place on the periphery of the World Health Assembly, from 3 to 10 June 2021 and aim to increase the understanding of how food systems and health are linked, which will permit equitable and sustainable food systems transformation. Recognizing that “unhealthy diets have become a primary source of poor health, multiple burdens of malnutrition and environmental degradation worldwide, with glaring disparities between rich and poor,” WHO has developed a ‘health narrative’ for food systems involving five thematic pathways that demonstrate how food systems influence health: occupational hazards, environmental contamination, unsafe and adulterated foods, zoonotic pathogens and AMR, and malnutrition in all its forms. Food safety has a clear role to play in these discussions – and in sustainable food systems.

For more information about Health talks, visit the website: https://healthtalks.foodsystemsforhealth.org