DESCRIPTION

The side-event is designed as an interactive web-dialogue to discuss the need for a collaborative effort to accelerate a food systems transformation in the Mediterranean region, in the COVID-19 context.

As the disruptions resulting from the COVID-19 crisis have highlighted the fragility of contemporary food systems, the side-event will highlight the importance of adopting an integrated context-specific Mediterranean SFS approach, leveraging the Mediterranean Diet for sustainable food consumption and production, while coping with the intertwined environmental, economic, socio-cultural, educational and nutritional challenges that the region is facing today.

The multi-stakeholder sustainable food systems initiative to establish an SFS-MED Platform, an affiliated project of the UN One Planet Network SFS Programme, jointly supported by FAO, CIHEAM and the Union for the Mediterranean Secretariat, will also be presented with a view to being reinforced by a broader partnership inclusive of all interested parties, and to further strengthening the collaboration with the One Planet SFS Programme partners.

The overall aim of this side-event is to initiate a regional SFS multistakeholder dialogue in for the Mediterranean as a contribution to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit preparatory process, and to boost more collaborative multi-stakeholder SFS actions on the ground to accelerate the 2030 Agenda in the region.