磋商会
Towards the Development of the Programme on Sustainable Food Systems (SFSP)
FAO and UNEP are jointly developing a programme on sustainable food systems under the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns (10YFP). As part of this process, a public consultation is being organized in order to take stock of relevant information on initiatives, collect comments of a draft concpt note and collect expressions of interest of entities to participate in the Programme.
Why Schools should be on the Frontline in Combating Malnutrition
To celebrate International School Meals Day on the 5th March, schools from around the world share their experiences of school meals. It’s a fun way for school kids to learn what’s on their plates and on what children the other side of the world will be eating.
However given the depressing regularity of nutritional bad news focusing on obesity or malnutrition perhaps policy makers should be just as excited by school meals and the wider school health and nutrition movement which can provide countries with the tools to tackle this problem.
In fact, school feeding and school health programmes are present in almost every country in the world – low, middle and high income alike. However, the quality of these programmes is often the poorest where nutritional challenges are the greatest. Attention is needed to improve the quality of these programmes to reach children who have the most to gain.
The World Health Organisation estimates that 42million infants and young children under 5 are overweight or obese in 2013 and by current trends this figure was likely to top 70 million by 2025. At the same time, in low and middle income countries, over a fifth of children under five are affected by stunting due to poor diets. Often the same children are suffering from the double burden of malnutrition resulting in stunted due to poor diets followed by a higher propensity for obesity later in life.
The need for a coordinated response led to the WHO set up in 2014 the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity.
This commission is sorely needed. According to a new six part series on obesity published by the Lancet, the global progress towards tackling obesity and its associated issues had been “unacceptably slow”, with only one in four countries implementing a policy on healthy eating by 2010.
According to Dr Lobstein from the World Obesity Federation and co-author of the series, "Undernutrition and overnutrition have many common drivers and solutions, so we need to see an integrated nutrition policy that tackles both these issues together to promote healthy growth for children."
In the drive to develop integrated health policies governments and international partners would be well set to look to the education sector, which has a long and successful track record in working collaboratively with sectors including health, agriculture, natural resources to develop school health and nutrition programmes focus on making children fit and able to learn.
School health and nutrition programmes provide the policies and skills based health education which will protect children as they grow up but also when combined with school feeding the means to deliver healthy nutritionally balanced food.
Skills for healthy living
Since 2003, Japan is one of the few countries to buck global trends and actually reduce year on year its obesity rates. This has been achieved by the government’s early adoption of food education in schools. Skill based education programmes such as the ones employed in Japan provide children with knowledge, attitudes and habits to live a healthy life is an incredibly effect means to cut down on obesity.
This skills-based health education is a core component of the globally recognised FRESH or Focusing Resources on Effective School Health framework which is used by Governments the world over to develop sustainable SHN programmes that work.
Balanced school meals
State of School Feeding, a World Food Programme publication written with the support of the Partnership for Child Development and the World Bank, found that virtually every country in the world provides school feeding at some level. This amounts to around 368 million children sitting down to a meal each school day.
This represents a prime opportunity to provide children with nutritious food and to educate them about the balanced diets. One such government-led movement which is seeking to do just that is Home Grown School Feeding. This seeks to provide school meals sourced from local smallholder providers. Rather than relying on imported heavily processed food this reconnects schools with a local and varied food basket.
This concept has been firmly adopted by the Ghana School Feeding Programme in which 1.6million of Ghana’s school children receive a hot nutritious meal made with ingredients grown locally. Instead of just filling the children up with carbs the programme is seeking to improve the nutritional intake of children through the use of an innovative online schools meals planner which enables caters to accurately calibrate the nutritional value of their cooked meals.
The initiative also encompasses community and school based skilled based education programmes to educate both school children and their families about healthy diets.
Using schools as a platform to tackle both under and over nutrition is even more effective when these programmes are integrated with WASH and deworming interventions.
Governments and their partners are increasingly taking on the nutritional crisis head on by using schools as a platform for the delivery of school health nutrition programmes. If that isn’t worth celebrating with a global day then I don’t know what is.
Francis Peel, Bachir Sarr and Meena Fernandes
Imperial College London - Partnership for Child Development
@HGSFglobal
报告和简报
School feeding and possibilities for direct purchases from family farming
This publication “School feeding and possibilities for direct purchases from family farming in Latin American countries” contributes to the articulation of the sectors involved with school feeding, in the search for alternatives for the institutionalization and strengthening of school feeding...
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报告和简报
健康的土壤是健康粮食生产的基础
维持粮食生产被广泛视为土壤的最主 要功能。它是农业的基础和几乎所 有粮食作物生长的媒介。事实上， 大约95％的粮食直接或间接地产自 土壤。健康的土壤提供粮食作物生长繁育所需的主 要养分、水分、氧气和根系支持。土壤还能够发挥 缓冲作用，保护植物脆弱的根茎免受温度剧烈波动 的影响。
报告和简报
Review of Global Food Price Databases
As part of a three-phase project, the Food Security Information Network (FSIN) sponsored a comparative study of the globally managed cross-country price and market information systems to assess complementarities and overlaps. This report contains a review of these databases in terms of data...
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报告和简报
Improving food safety and quality along the chain to protect public health, support fair food trade and contribute to food security and economic development
Ensuring food safety is a public health priority, and an essential step to achieving food security. Effective food safety and quality management systems are key not only to safeguarding the health and well-being of people but also to fostering economic development and improving livelihoods by...
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磋商会
Examining the linkages between trade and food security: What is your experience?
There are many ways in which trade agreements and rules may influence food security both positively and negatively. The relationship is complex and views about the effect of trade rules and agreements on food security vary substantially. What is your experience? How have trade agreements and rules affected the four dimensions of food security? And how can coherence between food security measures and trade rules be ensured?
报告和简报
Why has Africa become a net food importer?
That Africa has become a net importer of food and of agricultural products, despite its vast agricultural potential, is puzzling. Using data mainly for the period 1960-2007, this report seeks to explain Africa’s food-trade deficit since the mid-1970s. The core finding is that population growth, low...
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FSN Forum Workshop for Eastern Europe and Central Asia
FSN Forum Workshop - Inclusive policy dialogue to make trade policies conducive to food security and nutrition
FAO, Rome, 16-17 December 2014 - Food security is an international issue that requires collective global and regional action and an integrated approach. In recognition of this, the FSN Forum has created the Food Security and Nutrition Forum in Europe and Central Asia (FSN Forum in ECA), a network of experts and stakeholders in which to discuss regional food security and nutrition initiatives and generate innovative solutions.
To support the further development of the FSN Forum in ECA and to ensure its full ownership by regional actors from different backgrounds (including from civil society, academy, research and government), the two day workshop “Inclusive policy dialogue to make trade policies conducive to food security and nutrition” will take place in FAO Rome on 16-17 December 2014. The overall objective of the workshop is to stimulate the debate on trade and food security and nutrition policies and strategies that will feed into national and regional policy processes. The workshop will be held back-to-back to the first meeting of the CIS Agricultural Trade Expert Network organized by the Trade and Markets Division (EST), supporting the members of the new CIS Agricultural Trade Expert Network to be part of the regional and global policy debate on food security.
More information on the workshop is available here
Right to Food Timeline
The Right to Food Timeline highlights national, regional and global milestones for the realization of the right to adequate food as well as other substantive contributions to the implementation of the Right to Food Guidelines.