Initiating synergy for global food security
World delegates in Pretoria are discussing crucial sustainability issues
SOUTH Africa must move towards improved international co-operation on sustainable food systems and hopes that solutions emanating from a three-day conference on food issues will help the country achieve its 2030 vision on sustaining and creating decent employment opportunities in the food industry.
This is according to Garth Strachen, the deputy director-general of industrial policy development at the Department of Trade and Industry, speaking yesterday from the first Global Conference of the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production patterns, currently under way in Pretoria.
The objectives of the conference are to offer a dialogue to share experiences and exchange ideas, encourage participants to transition into crafting and decision-making mode by proposing concrete collective actions and initiatives, and highlight relevant tools, approaches and good practices.
It also underlines the importance of a multi-stakeholder, systems-based approach to make food systems more sustainable and lay the foundations for collective action and initiatives.
Strachen said the conference should kick-start a new era of improved international co-operation on sustainable food systems (SFS), as it aims to build new partnerships by creating synergies among stakeholders and accelerating a shift towards more sustainable food systems.
“This must be the beginning of a new era for improved international co-operation on sustainable food systems. We must seize this moment and use these three days to define what co-operation on SFS actually means in practice. We must also frame SFS issues in ways that allow us to move forward together and commit to adopting the resolutions of this conference.”
Strachen added that resolutions emanating from the conference’s robust deliberations will assist South Africa in achieving its 2030 vision, especially on sustaining and creating decent employment opportunities in the food industry.
More than 100 delegates from 28 countries are seeking a multi-stakeholder systems-based approach to making food systems more sustainable and addressing critical challenges in food systems to accelerate a shift to sustainability.
South Africa is co-leading the Sustainable Food Systems Programme, together with the government of Switzerland, the Humanist Institute for Co-operation and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). –