The COVID-19 pandemic not only brought on healthcare and economic crises, it has also radically exacerbated the world’s ongoing food security, nutrition, and climate crises. At the same time, the outbreak is deeply connected to today’s fragile food systems that degrade the environment through unsustainable land-use. As broken food systems push human, animal, and planetary health to their limits, policymakers and public health professionals alike must change the discourse surrounding food systems and come together so that transformative change and health are put at the centre of the pandemic recovery agenda.

In this session, experts from across the health and food communities will explore how a new narrative about food systems can be used to stimulate action and drive decision-makers towards making commitments, from policies to investments, that deliver on better health outcomes for people, animals, and the planet. Following on the heels of the Seventy-fourth World Health Assembly (24 May — 1 June), attendees of this event will gain a deeper understanding of intersection points across the health-food nexus, identifying where targeted, multi-stakeholder action could take place and create a multiplier effect across the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Now, more than ever, a systemic narrative about food and health must be reflected in the language of intersecting and aligned global processes — such as the G7, G20, UNFSS, COP26, and Nutrition for Growth. Co-hosted by the World Health Organization, EAT, and the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, the outcomes of this independent dialogue will be documented and submitted formally as an input to the 2021 UNFSS later this year.

This event aims to:

• Promote health and food systems resilience as critical to COVID-19 recovery 
• Communicate why we need new food systems narratives centered around upholding human, ecological, and animal health (i.e., One Health) and why dominant narratives are undermining all three dimensions of health as well as the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic;
• Catalyze support for an integrated, holistic approach to policy reform and coordinated action across food and health sectors, exploring opportunities for health and food system actors to work together for policy and practice reform 
• Using case studies from around the world, showcase how government leaders, the health sector and other food system actors have designed policies and practices that have delivered better health and sustainability outcomes for all.

Register for the event here: tiny.cc/HealthyFoodSystems

Download the agenda and watch a recording of the dialogue here: https://futureoffood.org/insights/healthy-food-systems-for-people-planet-and-prosperity/