The time is now for bold action to shoulder the challenge of Zero Hunger and ensure adequate nutrition for all, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today in closing remarks to the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), organized by FAO and WHO.
“Malnutrition is the number one cause of disease in the world,” Graziano da Silva said, adding: “If hunger were a contagious disease, we would have already cured it.”
At ICN2 governments adopted the Rome Declaration on Nutrition, along with a Framework for Action that provides far-reaching recommendations for national policy-makers to combat malnutrition and put healthy diets and environmental sustainability at the centre of food production and distribution, from farm to fork.
“We have before us a decade of nutrition,” Graziano da Silva added, referring to the upcoming Expo Milan 2015 with its theme “Feeding the planet, energy for life.”
He noted that food and nutrition security will also figure prominently in the United Nation’s post-2015 development agenda, which will replace the Millennium Development Goals that are coming to an end next year.
“This Conference on nutrition is the beginning of our renewed effort,” he said. “It will be acknowledged for having brought nutrition into the public sphere, making it a public, not a private, good.”
The Director-General recognized civil society and business as essential allies in combatting malnutrition for their respective roles in holding governments accountable and delivering food to consumers.
“We need adequate finance to be able to put into practice the ICN2 Framework for Action ,” the Director General reminded delegates. “That is not a minor issue.”
To support governments in transforming commitments into concrete actions, FAO established the Action for Nutrition Trust Fund. The fund will mobilize resources for programmes and projects that foster enabling environments for nutrition, promote sustainable food systems and nutrition-enhancing trade, increase nutrition information, improve food safety and make nutrition part of stronger social safety nets.
See full press release by FAO
