The InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) at the United Nations Food Systems Summit (UN FSS)

The UN Food Systems Summit

In 2021, UN Secretary-General António Guterres will convene a Food Systems Summit (UN FSS) to raise global awareness and land global commitments and actions that transform food systems to resolve not only hunger, but to reduce diet-related disease and heal the planet. The Secretary-General is calling for collective action of all citizens to radically change the way we produce, process, and consume food. He has put in place several structures to support the Summit process.

The culminating Summit gathering will take place in New York in September 2021 in conjunction with the UN General Assembly. This will be preceded by a pre-Summit gathering in Italy in July 2021.

The preparatory process is now already underway and builds on the many existing global events, processes and platforms that support the transformation of the world’s food systems through agreements, commitments or other collaborative actions.

The Summit process is also building synergies among multiple regional and national initiatives and alliances that are working to support the transformation of food systems. The Summit and preparatory process draw on evidence and knowledge from all sources to inform the global ideas and recommendations that will be shared with stakeholders around the world.

The Scientific Group:

• is an independent and diverse group of leading researchers and scientists from around the world;
• is responsible for ensuring the robustness, breadth and independence of the science that underpins the Summit and its outcomes;
• will inform the Summit’s content, recommended outcomes, clarify the level of ambition and commitments that will emerge from the Summit;
• works closely with the other structures for the Food Systems Summit, especially the Special Envoy for the Food Systems Summit and her Secretariat, the Action Tracks and Dialogue initiatives.

The group includes Mohamed Hassan, former IAP president, and and is chaired by Joachim von Braun, who led the IAP Food and Nutrition Security and Agriculture (FNSA) study (to discover the Group members and their bios check here).

The IAP Food and Nutrition Security and Agriculture reports will be updated

At the request of the chairs of the Scientific Group, the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP) will deliver 4 regional policy briefs based on the previous reports from its regional networks in Asia (AASSA), Europe (EASAC), the Americas (IANAS) and Africa (NASAC) for the FNSA project, updated with recent scientific evidence, policy development and assessment. The policy briefs will cover issues for transformation of food systems for improved health, nutrition, sustainable agriculture, and the environment. In addition, there will be a fifth, global, policy brief drawing on the 4 regional ones together with the global report from the FNSA project, also appropriately updated.

An outline scope has been agreed with the Scientific Group and it is anticipated that the 5 policy briefs will be completed by April. IAP will then consider further opportunities for discussing these publications worldwide.

In addition, during the course of 2021, the UN FSS will be organising dialogue events with stakeholders, including the scientific community, in preparation for the Summit. IAP academies (and regional academy networks) are encouraged to identify scientific experts to engage in these dialogues and IAP will contact relevant academies (and networks) in due course when more information about national events is available.

For more info on the Food Systems Summit check the UN Food Systems Summit website and the food systems dialogues Gateway.

Webinar: Improving Africa's Food System

The Leadership of the CAADP-XP4 organizations (FARA, AFAAS, ASARECA, CCARDESA, CORAF & NAASRO) and FANRPAN have been planning series of webinars on the above theme as part of activities towards producing the “One Africa Voice” for the UN Food Security Summit. The first webinar is scheduled for February 16 and the second will be on March 9, 2021 (you can register here).

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