Trade and Nutrition
UNSCN Event: Trade and Nutrition: Opportunities and Risks
On 10 June 2016, Michel Mordasini, Chair of UNSCN and Vice-President of IFAD and Ambassador Amira Gornass, Chair of CFS hosted the UNSCN event on "Trade and Nutrition: Opportunities and Risks".
More than 130 CFS stakeholders and representatives from civil society, the private sector and academia attended the event.
Highlights of the event:
- It contributed to create the base for a common understanding about healthy diets and the need for a conducive food environment
- It positioned nutrition as an important starting point and outcome for development
- It highlighted the importance of policy coherence to achieve nutrition outcomes
- It is important to build the evidence base about the impact of trade on nutrition, to inform trade negotiations
- It is essential to involve all actors in the value chain in order to make it more nutrition sensitive
Stineke Oenema, coordinator of UNSCN and Deborah Fulton, CFS secretariat both emphasized the added value of having jointly hosted the event.
Next steps:
The key issues arising from the discussion will be compiled in a document that will be shared among participants and posted on the website.
FAO will organise a technical meeting in fall, building on the UNSCN event, to start identifying the indicators for measuring the impact of trade and nutrition and build a research agenda. In December, FAO and WHO will jointly organise a symposium during which this issue will be discussed again with technical staff from member states. Follow up on trade and nutrition will need to go beyond FAO and WHO. All actors need to continue work on this issue.
A recorded version of the event is available on: http://www.fao.org/webcast/home/en/item/4109/icode/.
Final Agenda
UNSCN Discussion Paper - English
UNSCN Discussion Paper - French
UNSCN Discussion Paper - Spanish
UNSCN Executive Summary - English
UNSCN Executive Summary - French
UNSCN Executive Summary - Spanish
