The Near East and North Africa region loses and wastes a significant amount of food, estimated at up to 250 kg per person every year. This wastage of food reduces food availability, aggravates water scarcity, adversely impacts the environment, and increases the need for overseas food imports in an already highly import-dependent region.

The region’s governments have heightened their commitment to tackling the problem and have requested FAO’s support in reducing food losses and waste by 50% over a ten year period. In response, FAO has developed a “Regional Strategic Framework for Food Losses and Waste Reduction” to respond to the major challenges and to provide a launching point for action. Also in response to requests from Egypt, Iran, Jordan, and Lebanon, the FAO has also developed a sub regional project aimed at specifically building capacity in food handling, transportation, processing, storage and distribution.

The project “Capacity Building for Food Loss Reduction in the Middle East” will implement a large scale educational training program over the course of 24 months looking at  food loss prevention curricula and guidelines, and will hold a series of capacity development workshops for leaders in the food distribution and processing sectors, agri-business managers, and  agents.

The project has been developed within the framework of the FAO regional initiative for “building resilience to enhance food security and nutrition”. The initiative aims to support countries address acute vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses by building resilient food security and nutrition institutions, markets and production systems.