Dr Agnes Kalibata,
Dr Michelle Bachelet,
Excellencies, Honourable Ambassadors, Member State representatives, dear colleagues and partners,
Thank you for joining us for this second Member State briefing on the UN Food Systems Summit.
I’m pleased that many friends of WHO have joined today, including Dr David Nabarro, our Special Envoy on COVID-19;
Ms Gerda Verburg, UN Assistant Secretary-General and Global Coordinator of the Scaling Up Nutrition movement;
and others, to discuss preparations for the UN Food Systems Summit in September.
The COVID-19 crisis has revealed the fragility of health systems and the vulnerability and inequity of food systems, and how closely these systems are linked.
Even before the onset of the current crisis, the evidence for the need of food systems transformation had never been clearer.
An estimated eleven million people die every year due to unhealthy diets. Forty-four million disability-adjusted life years are lost to foodborne diseases.
Only two out of five infants are optimally breastfed, 47 million children under the age of five are underweight, while another 38 million are overweight.
Even before the pandemic, an estimated 690 million people globally were undernourished, and 672 million adults were obese. Both of these groups are at increased risk from COVID-19.
Tackling inequities and removing the barriers to accessing safe and healthy diets is critical to transforming our food systems to be healthy, equitable and sustainable.
Our health is impacted by the way we grow, harvest, process, transport, market, consume, and dispose of food.
We need a new narrative that puts the health of people, animals, and our planet at the heart of our efforts to transform food systems.
This requires us to shift our focus from quantity to quality, and to consider food not just as a commodity, but as a public good that is critical to health for all.
We have to move beyond the short-sighted policies of profit for a few at the expense of the many.
Health and nutrition for all are investments in the future. They are investments in people, economies, and a liveable planet.
I thank you.