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The Pre-Summit of the UN Food Systems Summit will set the stage for the culminating global event in September by bringing together diverse actors from around the world to leverage the power of food systems to deliver progress on all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Hosted by the Government of Italy, the Pre-Summit will take place in Rome from 26–28 July 2021. The event, which is open to all who would like to participate, will take a hybrid format, with an in-person component complemented by a vast virtual programme and platform. Through the Pre-Summit, the UN Food Systems Summit will reaffirm its commitment to promote human rights for all and ensure the most marginalised groups have an opportunity to participate in, contribute to and benefit from the Summit process.

Under the leadership of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the Pre-Summit is a “People’s Summit” that will bring together youth, farmers, indigenous peoples, civil society, researchers, private sector, policy leaders and ministers of agriculture, environment, health, nutrition and finance, among other participants. The event aims to deliver the latest evidence-based and scientific approaches to food systems transformation from around the world, launch a set of new commitments through coalitions of action and mobilize new financing and partnerships. All of this will be achieved by fostering diverse engagement from all quarters to uncover the broadest range of solutions and have maximum impact, together.

Since last year, the Summit has hosted regular online meetings, public forums and surveys organized around the Summit’s five action tracks to ensure the broadest possible range of perspectives and ideas to develop food systems that cater to all. The Summit will consolidate all that it has heard and Member States and actors around the world will begin to focus on how to operationalize the best ideas and commitments, to be announced in June, to close gaps and raise ambition towards achieving the SDGs by 2030. The Pre-Summit will take stock of the progress made through that process, laying the groundwork for an ambitious and productive UN Food Systems Summit, which will take place in September alongside the UN General Assembly in New York.

Read more: https://www.un.org/en/food-systems-summit/pre-summit

Promoting Actionable Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration for Inclusive and Equitable Food Systems Governance at all Levels Monday 26 July, 13:30-14:20 CEST

Registration: https://wwf.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIof-2vpjgiE9XMDLH8DyVp12OC8NLAOuFj

Hosted by: One Planet Network

This session will present good practices and innovative models of Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration (MSC) for sustainable food systems transformation, and aims to propose a set of principles for successful, inclusive and equitable food systems governance. 

It will present the findings of the Report on Food Systems Multi-stakeholder Governance Mechanisms of the One Planet network’s Sustainable Food Systems Programme, the practical experiences of the Food Security Committee of La Paz, Bolivia. The event will introduce the Future of Food Systems Collaboration being formed by UNDP, FAO, UNEP, WEF and EAT, a game-changer within the Innovation Lever focused on supporting ‘place-based’ food systems dialogues and other MSC actions post-Summit.

Drawing on recent work by OECD, the session will present good practices to set up evidence-based and inclusive policy processes to manage frictions around facts, interests, and values, to achieve better policies that address the many trade-offs in food systems.     

 

Powering Sustainable Cold Chain Solutions: Community Cooling Hubs Ensuring Nutritious and Healthy Food for AllTuesday 27 July, 13:30-14:20 CEST

Registration: https://unep.webex.com/unep/j.php?RGID=r5a4c278f36af32cb7fb544372f3e4667

Hosted by: UNEP-led Cool Coalition, FAO, Power For All

Acting on sustainable cold chain offers a multi-faceted win for people and the planet. Ensuring local and global “field to fork” connectivity can help nutritiously feed 10 billion people sustainably, support the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of small-scale farmers, and mitigate food loss and wastage.

Ramping-up of action on efficient and integrated cold chains with holistic models and whole systems approaches like the Community Cool Hubs (CCHs) can help ensure nutritious and healthy food for all. CCHs are integrated approaches to cater cold chains, cooling and energy needs to rural communities. 

They are economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable and contribute towards the SDGs, Paris Agreement, related Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol simultaneously.

 

True Cost Accounting for Food Systems: Redefining Value to Transform Decision-Making Tuesday 27 July, 19:30-20:20 CEST

Registration: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qdeupqDsjHdHW7Yrr5ZGdXUN3a2sdsaz_

Hosted by: UNEP, the Capitals Coalition and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food

The way that food is valued, or undervalued, is a major barrier to the transition to sustainable food systems. The failure to account for and value nature, health, and other issues leads to unsustainable decisions by governments and market players. Often it is in the best interests of actors in the food system to externalize environmental and social costs.

This Pre-summit parallel event aims to strengthen a coalition that brings the value provided by nature and people to the forefront of decision-making. Representatives from government, business, civil society and academia will share experiences on why and how food systems decision-makers can measure, manage and reward responsible stewardship of natural, human, social and produced capital.  

Strengthening Food Systems Transformation Through AgroecologyTuesday 27 July 2021, 19:30-20:20 CEST

Registration: www.biovision.ch/agroecology-works  

Hosted by: Biovision Foundation, Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock of Costa Rica, Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères of France, Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development fo Germany, GIZ, IFOAM – Organics International, Food Policy Forum for Change, Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA), Global Alliance for the Future of Food, FAO Scaling Up Agroecology Initiative, CGIAR/Alliance of Bioversity International & CIAT, UNEP, WFP, OP2B, EAT Forum, WWF, CIFOR-ICRAF, WFO

The aim of this session is to pull the agroecology-related strings together that have emerged in the UNFSS preparations and to translate them into calls to action and commitments. The session will provide a space for stakeholders from different contexts to demonstrate how agroecology works in practice and how they overcame obstacles and limitations; allow participants to share their support to agroecological approaches as a key concept for food systems transformation, get to know and join various agroecological initiatives, and invite others to act; build and strengthen vibrant multi-stakeholder coalitions to transform food systems based on agroecological principles  

Sustainable Nitrogen Management for Sustainable Food Systems Wednesday 28 July, 08:00-09:00 CEST

Registration: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/387492503187028491

Hosted by: UNEP Global Partnership on Nutrients Management (GPNM), International Nitrogen Initiative (INI), and Sustainable India Trust (SIT)

The role of nitrogen in achieving sustainable food systems for healthy diets is quite critical. We need to think strategically about how to balance nitrogen flows throughout the food system which will make current food systems more resilient and robust. Looking from a material and a governance perspective on the food system, we highlight major nitrogen losses and policy blind spots originating from a compartmentalization of food system spheres. Therefore, it is suggested to adapt a participatory and integrated approach to manage nitrogen flows throughout the food system across regional and global nitrogen boundaries,for a sustainable and healthy diet for all.