The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and its partners are going to convene the Asia-Pacific symposium on sustainable food systems for healthy diets and improved nutrition in Bangkok from 10-11 November 2017, at the Centara Grand Hotel and Convention Centre
Convened and organised by FAO, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), UNICEF and the World Bank, the symposium aims to address the growing challenge of nutrition and healthy diets in the Asia-Pacific region.
According to FAO, the region has around half-a-billion hungry people, with nearly one in four children below the age of five suffering from stunting, living alongside an increasing population of overweight and obese adults. FAO said that action is required now for the countries of the Asia-Pacific region to achieve the zero hunger target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) by the 2030 deadline.
During the symposium, FAO will release its ‘2017 Asia and the Pacific Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition: Investing in food systems for better nutrition,’ flagship regional publication, focusing on the most up to date estimates of hunger, undernutrition and obesity.
More than 250 participants from 30 countries representing parliamentarians, policy-makers, academicians, researchers, students, civil society, the private sector and development partners are expected to attend the event, said FAO.
“They will propose policies and programmes that enable better production, processing and distribution of food, as well as promoting more sustainable diets,” said FAO while reporting to the press.
The meeting is expected to feature recent innovations and research in nutrition and food systems from the region and beyond.
The Asia Pacific Symposium is one of five regional follow-up symposiums stemming from FAO’s international symposium on sustainable food systems and healthy diets held in December 2016 in Rome. The international symposium is part of the United Nations decade of action on nutrition from 2016 – 2025, and focuses on UN Sustainable Development Goal 2, zero hunger.
