 My name is Eran Reisman. I am the Senior Animal Health Officer for Rio in Budapest, although I'm speaking to you now from near Tel Aviv, Israel. I'm very pleased to facilitate this session, session 6 on One Health. And the objective of this session is really to help all of us to better understand what does it mean One Health. It has been widely used lately, but many people are still confused, don't understand what does it mean, how to use it, how to approach it. So today we will try to clarify it. Is it just a buzzword or it is really something that will bring the change, particularly these days with the pandemic still ongoing? So we will start with a short presentation from my colleague, Daniel Beltran, who is an Animal Health Advisor in Rio. And we will continue afterwards with a short discussion with two panel members that we have. And they will answer a few questions that hopefully will raise a discussion among participants. So I encourage you to take part of this discussion. Don't be afraid to be controversial or provocative. This is the idea of a good discussion. So let's start with Daniel. Daniel, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much, Eran, for the introduction. I hope you can all see my screen. So as Eran already mentioned, my name is Daniel Beltran. I work as an Animal Health Advisor. And I will be introducing what we mean by One Health, what's the origin of this concept, what are the main challenges faced, and what are the solutions that FAO believes can be implemented for a better implementation of the One Health approach. So over the last few years, we've seen a number of new threats arising because of the globalization and other similar problems. So perhaps the biggest change within over the past decade is the continued growth of the population, both humans and animals. That's been exponential in some cases. That has come together with climate and environmental change that often has a very direct effect also in health issues, because of increasing natural disasters, because of changes in the distribution of vectors that transmit diseases and so on. There's also been an increased global travel and trade. So this means not just movements of population, but also their animals and their commodities that can move from one side of the world to the other in just a matter of hours. Those potentially transmitting and bringing diseases with them. There is of course the problem of persistent poverty in large parts of the world. And public and animal health systems are often inadequate, poorly funded and not always capable of dealing with these new emerging health threats. There's been a shift in land use related to deforestation, but also through other factors that has made domestic animals and wild animals to become in a closer contact. There's been also an international expansion of food supply networks. So supply networks that only a few years ago used to be local, mostly local, not many kilometers involved. Now they have become really, really complex and commodities can, as I mentioned, travel very quickly and through very complex systems in very little time. And then finally we have the intensification of agricultural activity. Perhaps the clearest example is like the current production of, for example, poultry or pigs where you can have several thousands of animals housed in a single farm. And that of course implies that if disease occurs, it can be very quickly amplified. And all these threats combined have led to a number of issues that are currently the most important ones in terms of animal health. One of them is antimicrobial resistance to fight all these diseases. We need to use antibiotics and that leads to the appearance of persistent bacteria and emerging infectious diseases that keep on appearing mostly from the contact between livestock, wildlife, and humans. Of course we still have the programs of neglected zoonosis, those that have been with us for many years now, but that are still causing big troubles to the public health systems and not to forget the food safety issues. Just to remind you, about 60% of all infectious diseases are zoonosis, meaning that these are transmitted from animals to humans. One of those up to 75% of the emerging diseases are also zoonosis. This is where the concept of one health comes in and the vision of one health is that a multidisciplinary collaborative and multi-sectorial approach involving specialists from environmental health, from human health, from animal health, but also from other not health disciplines like social sciences and so on, to come together to look at the source of the problems to improve the health as a general concept for animals, for humans, and for the environment. So the whole idea of one health is to look at the source of the problems, to look at the risk factors that cause problems to emerge right on the traditional approach that used to look at the solution only once the problem has appeared. So now with one health we try to stop those risk factors from occurring so that diseases don't emerge. And these efforts need to be coordinated and stimulated at local, regional, national, and global level. So what are the challenges for one health implementation? Perhaps the biggest challenge is like despite of being a concept that has been around for a couple of decades already, there is still a huge gap between theory and practice. It is a well understood concept. It's clearly unproven how it can benefit society. However, very often we still see that that theory is not applied. And even at international level, like international agencies, we have developed a number of joint tools and guidelines and so on, but still we often don't work as closely as we should together with our international partners, only on control locations. There is this problem of gap between theory and practice perhaps gets best translated at the national level, where there is usually an inefficient advocacy of the one health concept and still very little collaboration happening between the different sectors, mostly animal health, public health, and environmental health. There is limited funding and in many countries like this funding has to compete with many other very pressing problems and challenges. And on top of this limited funding, the funding is actually an evenly distributed. So public health sector is usually much better funded than the animal health sector and not to talk about the environmental sector that often gets very negligible amounts of money to deal with health issues. A bit related to all the previous ones, the works still conducted in silos, so different ministries work separately. There is a lack of effective mechanisms to collaborate between different ministries and to share information. There is a problem with the sustainability of initiatives that they tend to be short-term. So often once the funding runs out and the project finishes, the efforts are discontinued and often all the all the benefits achieved are lost. And finally, there is a poor miserability. It shouldn't be like that, but the fact is that we often don't have very clear ways to implement to measure the benefits of one health. In fact, first, perhaps the best example is that there is no specific indicator for one health among the strategic development goals. So what can we, how can we solve this? How can we better implement one health? I think in these times we are living with COVID-19 antimicrobial resistance, Ebola, we are in an ideal situation to create a global advocacy for the one health and how all these issues could have been prevented or at least minimized if one health had been in place. So I think the international community is taking a good opportunity on this and perhaps over the next few years we will see a better implementation of one health. There is a need for more multi-agency joint funded programs. So the main agencies dealing with health are FAO and WHO and OIE. And there should be more programs that really joint efforts and joint implementation rather than just collaborating at specific points. I think like there is a good example with the multi-partner trust fund that deals with antimicrobial resistance that was initiated a couple of years ago where these three agencies that I mentioned have to plan and implement together from the very start a country level their programs on antimicrobial resistance. It's important to focus our efforts. There is many health challenges and particularly as international agencies but also at national level it's important to pick the low hanging fruits that matter. What I mean by this is that the efforts and the selection of projects and the development of projects should be based on country priorities through prioritization exercises. We should target existing programs where there's already efforts conducted at national level that can be supported and most importantly perhaps we have to very much have in mind the impact of these health challenges and livelihoods. So we need to pick up those problems that are mostly affecting livelihoods of people. Projects should be long-term. So rather than the one to the place that we often see, we should aim for like longer term, meaning more five years that allow the gradual implementation and like showing measurable results. There should be a result driven so it should be very clearly in the formulation that the results can be easily measured and this will hopefully allow for convincing and showing the efficacy of one health. Pilots can be used for advocacy. So oftentimes funding doesn't allow to implement a project at full scale at national level fully fled and instead pilots can be very useful to choose a specific area, geographical area or topic to start slowly, show progress, show results and then scale up once those results can be used for advocacy at national level. It's important to involve the industry, the farmers and the consumers at the very beginning. This will allow that they become engaged, that they become part of the solution, part of the action, part of the implementation and this should hopefully lead to private public partnerships and eventually the sustainability of projects. And finally we need to work this strategy. So strategies need to be developed at national but also regional level and in fact the FAO recently published the regional strategy and all this solution requires to be implemented at all geographical levels. We need to have this enhanced collaboration and coordination at global level, mostly through the tripartite FAO, the World Health Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health together with other agencies. Also at regional and sub regional level with regional agencies and regional economic communities but of course most importantly at national level where the different ministries and different departments need to collaborate on a regular basis and also bringing in together the private sector and other stakeholders. Thank you very much for your attention. Back to you, Erlan. Thank you, Daniel. Thank you for this comprehensive but short presentation. Now for the sake of time we will move immediately to the panel questions. Again, I have the pleasure to present Sofia Burtak who is the training and gender manager in advisory services in Ukraine and Dr. Galiba Abdulayev who is the chief veterinary officer in the Food Safety Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan. So for you I have three questions. Let's start with the first question. Let me just share here the panel at the screen so everybody can see that. The first question, what are the main obstacles that member states face in implementation of the One Health approach? Let's start with you Dr. Galiba please. Thank you very much, Mr. Erlan. First of all, many thanks for invitation and thanks for Mr. Beltran for comprehensive presentation. Exactly one health approach it is new in terms of prophylaxis investigation surveillance of the zoonotic diseases. But yes, in reality there are some obstacles in the member countries for creation of the system in the frame of One Health approach to join to bring together environment organizations, human health organizations and animal health organizations. In our experience the first of all these obstacles in the member countries is related with legislation first in the countries and administrative sharing of the responsibility between human health, animal health and environmental organizations. Therefore if the common activities on surveillance, on outbreak investigation, on monitoring on the zoonotic diseases, in our opinion it is will be give good power to implementation of the One Health approach. From other side it is mostly related with administrative sharing. The financing of the activities related with One Health approach, if the organizations related with this activity is separate, of course the financing from the government budget and from the other resources will be shared between that organizations and in sometimes not efficiency it is bring to not efficiency usage of the financing. One of the main challenge in this regard can be relationship in terms of international revenue and in terms of regional level which the FAO and other international organizations like OIE and WHO etc can help in this regard. Related with first questions Iran I can I am finished with my speech. Thank you very much. But what do you think to jump to next questions after the discussions? No, no let's move slowly. I really appreciate your perspective Dr. Galim because it's really come from the government and now Sofia I'm looking forward to hear from you because you work with extension services which basically it's an NGO that does not depend on government funding if I'm not wrong and you also work more on the grassroots level so please Sofia please proceed. Hello to everyone. My name is Sofia Brutakis-Eran said I'm a program manager for the training and educational support for the farmers and I'm really working at the grassroots level with farmers on everyday basis for the obstacle and the concept I would say maybe I will make a little bit harder for the presenters as I am adding some obstacles not taking them out of the slide. I would add here the farm structure and how the farming in the country is right now structured. We have plenty of very small producers and small holder farmers so the structure of production especially in dairy sector maybe it will be a like in more countries not only in Ukraine you can feel it by your own situation but here in Ukraine we have very very tiny producers which are spread all over the country and actually as the country is quite big they have very difficult these which are not similar from region to region so the structure of the farming and small producers challenges will affect as well this one health approach in having the proper let's say the prevention of the diseases especially those which are zoonosis as I'm working with the women and I'm taking care as well of their comfort in the production I would say that women are affected by this kind of influence even more than anybody because they are too close to the production in the sector to the main contact with the animals with the product and they are influenced and they are influencing as well so in this regards I would share one case which we already implemented in Ukraine as extension service this is the comfort conditions in the barns and I should say that other specialists who like milk technicians veterinarian trainers zoo technicians they are mostly maybe 90 percent of their time they are working with the family farms on comfort conditions for the cows and people in this regards we have a good let's say results on the bacteria decreasing in the milk we have the somatic cells which are decreasing constantly for the last five years I wouldn't say that this is something will save the world but this is the little tiny steps which help people to learn how to maintain their small farms and to be to have healthy herd of course and to be healthy themselves so this is kind of dignity level and yesterday I remember that one of the panelist Judith said that food is not commodity food is the right basic right of the people I would add to that I will say that I'm thinking the same way and I will add that we are when we are working on the conditions for the production for the better way how people maintain their barns the elementary Higian conditions this is the part of the dignity and how the producers feels themselves how those women are milking their cows how they are marketing their product how they are having the access to the cooling tanks to them element elements of the cleaning of all the equipment they have so all of that is causing them better self confidence and self esteem so from from this level I see this kind of family farms and producer level can influence on this one health approach second level I would stress today of the obstacles this will be the financial part so financing and access to the finances and the infrastructure which leads to better this to better these conditions in Ukraine and maybe it might be similar for the other countries small producers and even medium producers they are hardly taking a record of their finances so what is our case we worked with small farmers and created kind of farm management groups so we regrouped small producers to take management accounting and how it influence how it's related with them preventing diseases and veterinarian services the first issue which arise by after one year of recording and then we benchmarked those family farms between themselves first of all they spent a lot of money for the veterinarian services and they are not satisfied so they have very little access to good veterinarian support they have the state institutions but they they mostly are providing some documentations on inspections but not the curing their animals having the constant or accompaniment or consultations and all the farmers were not satisfied so from this ground level we calculated how much money they spent in this group for the veterinarians so in this in this regards we we see that at least one veterinarian could have good salary for one year to provide the support for those farmers not one farmer but regrouped we calculated this little business plan and start to find the proper person now we can share this case this group has one veterinarian who do each months following with each farmer we know that this is kind of little case for Ukraine but financially sustainable and it works farmers are paying for every month's visit and the approach is to prevent the disease not to go for the urgence but to go for the kind of prophylactics and one more thing which is not typical for Ukrainian times of year but no i really appreciate it i think it's fascinating we can talk about hours about that but for the sake of time i'm sorry that's one that's this is something i want to share this is something okay briefly no no that's infrastructure it's the third level of obstacles so that's why absolutely we don't have we don't have enough infrastructure around the farmer yeah well i i i totally agree with you and i think it's fascinating to see that the galleep level of seeing the obstacles and your ground level working with farmers although i believe these obstacles are common to all countries in the region what's is important to to see that the finance is is common from the government part and also from the farmer part so it's definitely a major obstacle let's move to the to the second question um which i doesn't move to me here okay um i will try to okay uh okay the the second question for we start again with galleep is what are the expectations from FAO member states in engaging the stakeholders in the one health approach uh yes iran the FAO can facilitate to to develop the one health approach in the country what kind of supports i mean uh how we experience the FAO can FAO can create network in the regional level to sharing experience between the countries where is there are some luck where is some some countries went to a hand etc the FAO can facilitate uh in proof of the legislation and adjustment of the local legislation into the country to the international requirements and as the mrs safia put that mentioned that there are some gaps some problems in the farm level which uh in the most of countries which if i'm wrong all world the products the animal products is producing mostly 70 percent in the small scale farms and the FAO uh they should be facilitated the observing of the uh human health and animal health approach in the small scale farms uh there are in sometimes the lack of funding in in some way the administrative management the creation and providing of the veterinary services etc uh in in either uh open options that FAO can facilitates freedom of the uh good examples good experience to the regional level to the international level and the FAO can support in our opinion to creation of the diagnosis of the zoonotic diseases in sometimes the improving of the laboratory capacity in the field capacity in the animal health and human health level for creation of the uh the investigation in the environment what kind of activity in the farm level bring damage to the environment that is it will be very bad influence for next future and of course the methodical support uh in terms of management of the small scale farms and the uh the big producers interpreters i think it is enough the show now it's very comprehensive i i sincerely appreciate that that's uh really important to see the the government perspective sofya please your perspective is again is fascinating as well so please briefly what where do you what what are the expectations as you see them i'm totally supporting uh galips for first speech because all of that are very important and i would add only access of smallholder farmers to this kind of infrastructure um to see if they have really the access to laboratories access to these consultations who will explain them so this constant accompaniment as well and yesterday as well was uh pasture milking case it was by one of the participant question and this kind of cases as pasture milking or some new introduction of regrouping the farming of the farmers and how it can be a success that would be very appreciated expectation because we we know that sustainability lies not only in support programs which are short term but to see how it can last for many years and people farmers can practice which is leading to better quality of the product and pasture milking which is um as well higiyan mohigiyan way of having the milk milked and cooled and delivered is one of this kind of case we already practiced that in ukraine and we have the pasture management system so um this gives as well possibility to veterinarians to enter this herd it's not this like in the small households it can be at least for the summertime period uh on one place and this gives as well the another kind of approach to the health of the animals health of the people so this kind of good practice is to share yeah i i i think i first of course i totally agree also from personal experience and it's come really good with the perspective of galip from the government how everything together is there is a creation of a synergism in this perspective and this is what FAO is is trying to to achieve so let's go to the last question uh galip but again we can start with you what are the criteria which member state can evaluate the rate of FAO achievement with respect to increasing the resilience of poor uh to extreme event uh and even disasters such as uh not only example like the pandemic but also transboundary animal diseases or huge outbreaks of uh foot and mouth disease and any influence here in other words how how states uh or how we FAO we know that we did a good job galip please yeah exactly uh first uh what we have to do under the animal health approach uh the main approach is the struggle against transpronged animal diseases which is bring big damage to the economy uh to the uh human health uh to the uh communication between countries therefore the FAO approach uh FAO support or or the FAO activity in pro in frame of in member country can be evaluated like uh what kind of activity for example in terms of improvement of the legislation uh capacity building activity improve capacity of the laboratory improve capacity in the epidemiology field investigation uh the training of the people uh to creation uh the network for for training in the regional level in the countries which are the big economic uh the relationship etc i think uh this the uh criteria by these criterias the faos activity can be evaluated in the in the country level and in the FAO level thank you very much galiba i i totally agree and uh uh sofia what do you think about this aspect with with your perspective i would say that um here we have um one approach in the support of the state i believe it should be uh accompanied by the consultancy because it's not only the equipment donated or milking machine which are needed or tractors or whatever the machinery which can be um part of the state support or other organization support but as well this kind of consultancy here well when we have uh more deeper problems like transboundary animal diseases um much more uh soft approaches needed because people have to understand more um that milking machine is not bringing the whole solution we need to have the higien cleaning we need to know how to do that properly and again this channel can be very practical with very good results and when we see the number of family farms reconstructed making more milk having more profits so here we will feel this kind of the approach and as well the second is that we need to regroup farmers FAO is making the statement on empowerment that empowering people means organizing rural people so this second um strategically i would say approach is to regroup uh reorganize people into any kind of cooperatives collective actions networks producers organizations because in this case they will reach the market the market have very strict um criteria for quality of the product and here we will have good um consequences and good results in regrouped um farmers infrastructure for the having the good approach in higien and uh going to the market with the quality product so this kind of two two levels i would point out okay so well i'm more interested in this case also to know how how uh FAO is is judged i mean how we know that we are doing a good job but for me um and thank you for for the insight of both of you it's evident that uh both from what galib says and what both of what you use Sofia said is that the presence of FAO in order to to do a good job need to be more present uh on on different level from the government to the farmer that's for me is very clear and so thank you very much for for this fascinating discussion i know we could do it for forever but we have another 17 minutes for this session so now i want to open it for for uh for the for the public i see that we have about 100 participants in total but uh i i i want to throw to the of course everybody can put in the chat the question that as you wish or even take the if i'm not wrong you can ask the questions but i want to ask a very specific question do you think FAO presence is present enough on on on this important level particularly on on the ground level where we're really where we really can we can make impact either on the farmer level or or where veterinarians are going where we can impact the the way veterinarians are working do you think FAO is is is enough there and if not or if yes how how what what what we can do more to improve that's my question to the public but however if you have other please proceed so thank you again for the panel thank you again daniel and then now it's open to to the panel please i'm uh inviting the public to be provocative to be controversial no revenge if you think this is an opportunity to say things that please i i i'll be fascinated the listening to it and yes and if you want to say something please raise your hand and you can take the the floor if you are shy to to to raise your hand just pick out we will manage one by one of course please please go ahead elaine yeah i am i'm looking forward good morning thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak in this important the discussion and thank you for wonderful presentations especially the case of Ukraine was very very interesting i speak here on behalf of the niel n e c the civil society movement of peasants pastoralist fisher folk and consumers and other people working in rural areas um i would like to comment connect this what was said with the reality on the ground we have reality of a lot of smallholder farmers scared to speak about spread of diseases because there is no compensation no quality veterinary service available very often and this for example in my country led to in i come from georgia led to very severe spread of zoonotic diseases and i think it's very important that the f.a.o. and the government's take into the consideration that the science and the government has to work in hand in hand with people and implement food safety policies which are adapted to to the reality and mainstream the agroecological approach because agroecology is really helps us to to to connect food safety and environmental issues together thank you thank you very much i of course totally agree with that you know f.a.o. as mentioned but daniel has just published his his strategy regional strategy where all the things that you are mentioning here we are mentioning about this problem how we want to face that lack of a good veterinary services we work a lot with veterinary service to improve their capacity to cope with diseases i see another hand raising but i can see very well the name please the H H H I T C please go ahead because i can't see ah okay yeah all right i just like to add a couple of things to what Elena has said and to also thank Sophia for her excellent intervention because there are such close links between oil health plant health animal health and human health and these are the things we need to look at but from a human health point of view what we talk a lot about social protection and the need for social protection but i would like to introduce a slightly provocative idea here because it is not commonly included we do talk about the right to food and nutrition i would like to introduce the idea of the food safety net that states are also responsible as duty bearers for ensuring the right to adequate food and nutrition and a food safety net including for producers who are often those who are hungry is something we need to look at and particularly to link it to the concepts of agroecology that Elena has already mentioned because if people eat healthy food they will remain healthy thank you thank you very much i i think this perspective of grass roots are extremely important for our work for FAO work always try to bridge between the government needs and also the farmer needs which should be should be linked very very closely more more observations more comments even more provocative ones as as Judith mentioned please Sophia you want to say something please go ahead as Judith said stay on this path of provocative i would add to our discussion as well the trade we didn't mention today how this trade and marketing is influencing on the farmers and how farmers perform because we know that a lot of middlemen's which are buying the product which is not a good quality and we had the disaster in Ukraine when the product and even nowadays are buy it by the middlemen's with no laboratory testing we don't know what in this product finally is and the system allows is allowed actually by the state because it's not regulated by the inspections so if we say that farmer is regulated he stays on his place the cooperative who collects and sell milk is regulated but we have a lot of entrepreneurs middlemen who really spoiled the things they compete with the prices they buy the bad product and they still can sell them to the milk plants so in in this regards the food safety system and what it just said the food safety net is very important because otherwise small farmers even regroup they are hardly competing in the in the straight system so that's the part of kind of holes in the system where our food safety is just leaking out thank you I appreciate this extra comment because again it's it's brings the the importance of recognizing that small holders are not alone because there is a huge other obstacles for them on on the top of their own daily obstacles which which again is responsible of the government etc in terms of trade access to markets etc thank you very much any more comments from from participant in the countries from from the delegates country delegates don't see any hand rising I don't see any comment here on the chat so okay so who else I don't see any hand raising oh okay bing please yeah if if I don't see you please just start speaking it's okay we are all in a very informal environment at least I hope so please feel yourself comfortable thank you very much thank you very much this was a real good session that I really enjoyed listening all the speakers and the interveners and thank you the speaker from Ukraine again because there are really good examples we really need to hear more examples and the real situations from the ground for us also to think about it so my name is oljai bingol I am the technical secretariat of nieleni Europe and Central Asia as Judith and Elena who has spoken before me so I just would like to add one issue that I just feel like very important in our cases when we are working on the ground it is the role of the scientists the role of the researchers and the responsibility of the governments and also the FAO indirectly so we need to growers or shepherds they have traditional knowledge coming from civilizations and they are practicing that knowledge but that knowledge is not unfortunately because of the aging on the rural areas changing changing the situation in agricultural policies it is not so much very well just transferred from one generation to another so it is very important for the governments and the technical support of FAO to raise this issue of we need support to science which walks hand in hand with the producers we because the majority of the producers who are feed who feed the world is the small holders but the science that is supported financially supported is not working for those growers for those producers we need researchers working on the ground together with the farmers using the traditional knowledge which is incredibly important because it is like the seeds like the traditional seeds it is adapted to the climate change it is adapted to the conditions the knowledge as well so we need them to work on the ground and we need to be farmers in the labs you know together working so participatory research is very important and the funds should go to those who are doing this and we also need FAO to continue their very important efforts on supporting agroecology which is a holistic approach to transition for a better society it is science practice and social movement so we definitely need FAO also your important intermediary role between the governments to convince them to support small holders protect their knowledge and support the science thank you very much this was my addition thanks a lot again thank you very much that was indeed very important I totally agree that we need more science on the ground however the main challenge of FAO is how to make take the knowledge of scientists and to deliver it to to farmers in a very plain language because often scientists speak in their own language which is not well understood by farmers so that this kind of technology transfer is a huge challenge for itself and I'm really saying it from personal experience as a veterinarian who worked many many years with small farmers so FAO definitely from all what you are saying here needs to be there on the ground in my personal opinion be there on the ground different level of course of the ground and working with farmers working with veterinarians private veterinarians and encouraging the extension services to ensure what you are saying here will be implemented and not just in publication etc but really have an impact on the livelihoods of farmers and one more thing I think was mentioned here by Sophie training is that animal and you also Sophie here you mentioned the animal welfare and indeed as a veterinarian I can ensure you that animal welfare direct impact not only on animal health but of course on production so if we want to improve livelihoods we have to take care of animal welfare so we have only two minutes if there is any no any more comments here I will proceed to close the session I'll give a 10 second to for a last comment maybe FAO, FAO officers that are literally working with countries to improve the agriculture sector maybe someone wants to say something okay so with that I proceed to close the session but first I want to thank Mark Hovary who is our animal health specialist who behind the scenes organized this session without him and also Jofia and Roland this would not have happened so thank you very very much for this excellent job and now we have a 15 minutes break and we will after that proceed to session seven so thank you very much again for your participation for the panel Danielle and for the participants and for their intervention fascinating discussion but the important is that this discussion will lead to our action FAO action on the ground is impact on the ground thank you very much thank you thank you so we have 15 minutes break nature-based solutions are actions supported in ecosystem functioning to face societal challenges and provide human well-being how can agriculture drive the delivery of NBS NBS in agriculture maintain and provide ecosystem services managing natural resources and biodiversity in a sustainable way to reach food security and livelihoods its use allows solving challenges such as climate change soil and water scarcity biodiversity loss and landscape degradation the use of these actions in agriculture leads us towards the sustainable and resilient agriculture that our time demands walking hand in hand with nature for better production better nutrition better environment and the better life welcome everyone to the session seven of this informal consultation my name is Shiroma Satya Palad and I work as the FAO forestry officer during this session we will discuss the topic of nature-based solution and the role of this approach in agriculture systems transformation in Europe and Central Asia the session has been structured in three main sections the presentation of the technical topic by Tania Santivane's agriculture officer and delivery manager of the regional initiative three then we will have the panel discussion and afterwards the session will be open for the dialogue will be open to the member countries I just would like to recall that the dialogue will be held in English and Russian the language interpretation can be selected by clicking in the global icon at the bottom of the screen please look at the bottom of the screen of the zoom you can see this icon for comments and the questions during the dialogue please use the question and answers box so it's called Q&A box which is next to the globe icon at the bottom of the screen or you can raise your hand using the button below about interactions now without further delay I would like to invite Tania Santivane's so for opening remarks over to you Tania okay thank you thank you Shiroma let's start with the presentation please could you please share my presentation next slide please okay and good morning and good afternoon to all participants and let me start recalling that the main objective of priority three is to promote nature-based and sustainable natural resources management preserving biodiversity and addressing biodiversity climate change and nature-based solutions are key instruments to achieve this objective nature-based solutions can mimic natural process and the basis ecosystem functioning to face climate change safeguard and preserve biodiversity and manage natural resources sustainable with the final goal of ensuring food and livelihood security this approach supports nature-positive production to reach net zero environmental impact and agri-food system as embodied in the third action of track of the food system summit moreover one of the key campaign of COP26 negotiation is nature campaign which focus on transforming agriculture innovation system for people nature and climate the campaign is calling to global actions to work to life hand-in-hand with nature since working with nature is to delivery benefits from both people and biodiversity next slide please in the last 30 years european european and central asian countries are seriously exposed to weather extreme events and high temperatures where some areas are geographically exposed to severe flooding or grounds which is causing important loss in crop animal production and fisheries it is demonstrated that land use change is a major driver of biodiversity decline in european central asian it is generating and sustained agricultural practice and food production which is putting under pressure the use of land and water resources this particular incendiary relation due to the water scarcity soil salinization and pesticide contamination and yesterday we hear this from our colleagues from central asia in the session five therefore agri-food system transformation is crucial a nature-based solution can play a key role in this regard since as i said previously they are optimizing environmental resources used in food production reducing biodiversity loss reducing pollution reducing water use soil degradation and greenhouse emissions however the implementation of nature-based solution in our region face some challenges like the lack of data and information limited knowledge and awareness on financial and environmental benefits of the nature-based solution approach and also lack of research on the extension service for capacity building and private sector and despite this challenge it also gives a nature-based solution gives member countries a great opportunity to start investing in natural capital with positive financial returns on environmental and benefits for their population nowadays natural capital attract the most interested and expected future investment what i wanted to say we need to invest in nature in line with this in the european union recognize that nature-based solution is an instrument which can support implementation of european green deal and EU adaptation strategy tool nature-based solution are vital complement to decarbonization and reduce climate change risk contributing to achieve climate adaptation and mitigation commitments in the framework of the paris agreement in addition nature-based solution can contribute to member countries efforts to achieve several sdgs as you can see in the figure sdg like sdg 13 on climate action sdg life on land sdg 12 sustainable consumption and production and this is important since nature-based solution recognize the value of traditional and local practice and dignify the work of small farmers can also contribute to sdg 5 sdg 10 and sdg 1 moreover nature-based solution open great opportunities to promote technical and social innovation and to revisit reformulate the environmental policies that can support the green recovery green agriculture and green alliances in our region next slide please in this regard FAE original office will further give support to member countries by providing original mechanisms to improve their capacities regarding nature-based solution for instance first establishing regional technical network to promote nature-based solution for strengthening the sustainable use natural resources in agriculture in forestry and conserving biodiversity second providing technical assistance to countries for identification and mapping existing and traditional and local agricultural practices that represent examples built in nature observation third bringing a scientific framework of nature-based solution to be adopted and applied in the graduate agricultural system and to solve some of the agricultural challenges and finally we would like to support the country's access to climate and finance environmental sources that promote public and private sectors natural capital investment to conclude I would like to highlight that this region is a treasure trove of nature-based solution which grants the opportunity to work hand in hand with nature this is in line with the new strategic FAE strategic program it means for better production better environment better nutrition and better life over to you Shiroma thank you Tanya for very concise presentation we learned what is nature-based solution and how FAE original initiative taking nature-based solutions into account in FAO activities and most importantly the way forward with this approach now it's time to introduce our panel and its members first I would like to introduce Dr. Baina Kaua he's the councillor at the permanent representation of Hungary to European Union and he's also the secretary general of the BioEase initiative after completing his PhD from the University of Budapest he worked at the Ministry of Agriculture in Hungary and then as the scientific and policy officer in the European Commission's general research and innovation bioeconomy strategy unit in 2016 Dr. Kaua was also appointed as secretary for the Standing Committee on Agricultural Research his responsibilities cover FAE 7 and Horizon 2020 project management strategic documents and implementation of the bioeconomy strategy in his current role as the secretary general of the BioEase initiative he starts with action in the council agenda for research and innovation in the field of bioeconomy welcome Dr. Rahn our next panelist is Dr. Ben Soniwell Dr. Ben Soniwell is the deputy director of Amsterdam Center for World Food Studies a senior researcher at Athena Institute and we are University Amsterdam and he also has professorships at the Ebermikalab University in Benin and the Alkez University in Jerusalem the central topic of his research is the modeling relationship between land and water quality agricultural production and eco services he has managed research projects in Latin America, Asia, Middle East and Africa he continues to supervise PhD candidates and teach and develop study projects with students now our the last but not the least the important the panel member I would like to introduce Ms. Christina Grandi she's the chief food security campaigner at International Federation of Organic Agriculture Christina was born in Buenos Aires in Argentina where she earned a master's degree in agricultural in early 1980 she migrated to Italy we are working with Italian ecologists she took an active role in the referendum campaign for reducing the use of pesticides in agriculture Christina specializes in organic agriculture as part of its global policy in her current role as the chief campaigner at IFORM Christina advocates for organic agriculture and highlights the role of organic agriculture and ecology and she is closely working with all the Rome based UN agencies now we will start our first question with Dr. Ben Sonnyway Ben could you please tell us do nature-based solutions offer an opportunity to address food production issues and climate change in a sustainable manner over to you Ben yeah thank you Fioroma and I think with with the climate change effects and the negative climate change effects on the rise it's very rightful question but fortunately I can I can I can confirm with a with a big yes that nature-based solutions can address and and mitigate the negative climate climate change effects we have seen in in Kenya how the consequences of an increased erratic rainfall were addressed by reforestation efforts meaning that the water balances at a local level were more according to the the needs and the demands of the water at the right places in the right time after the reforestation took place and the the water flows were were actually managed better by discharge to the groundwater taking care of a higher base flow so we clearly could see how a nature-based solution here could help to mitigate negative climate change effects the same holds actually for for greening the cities an initiative that is currently much embraced by by many urban planners and here what we see is that you can by creating for example allotment gardens at a larger scale that on one hand you deliver fresh and healthy foods at short distances to the customers and at the same time you you are reducing the heat islands in the in the in the cities so that are just two examples but there are many more in which nature-based solutions can help to mitigate those those negative climate change effects so yes indeed shiroma thank you but it's actually it brings me to a follow-up question you have mentioned about the advantage and the negative impact and everything on the climate change so even though there are obvious advantages of nbs in reality we see only very few examples so can you please a little bit explain why is it so difficult to implement nbs interventions over to you Ben yeah thanks thanks shiroma because here we really go to the core of the matter why is it that there are so few examples of of successful nature-based solutions and that the the answer to the question is that it's not an easy intervention and the reason is that when you take make use of nature-based solutions you rely heavily on the ecosystems and on the ecosystem services that are delivered by those ecosystems and those ecosystems are by definition large and and lumpy and and they need time ample time and space for their regenerative processes besides that they're very much interconnected by water flows migratory patterns of the of the animals so it isn't it is a system that deserves attention on the on the right scale it also means that there are many people involved if you talk about large areas many people are involved that our stakeholders of these eco services and they have to agree jointly how to manage these these ecosystems and how to use the eco services such that they can all benefit from it in in the right way so many of those stakeholders have to be turned into custodians who who manage the the the eco services and manage this nature-based solutions in in the in the rightful way we have seen in the dryland areas for example and and I think in central Asia many of the areas also belong to the drylands that their nomadic pastoralists for example have a set of agreements among each other how to manage and how to divide the grazing lands and the water resources over time and over space and and those are very delicate systems but they they are managed very well and and they they are a good example to see how these nature-based solutions can solve issues that that cannot be solved by by individuals so in short it is not only a good understanding of the ecology it's also a social dynamic process what is needed for these nature-based solutions and and we did a small study on 23 of these nature-based solutions and there came a set of generic outcomes that clearly showed that what is needed for a successful and sustainable intervention of nature-based solutions that you have a full stakeholder involvement and that you also require interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary platforms meaning that the the users are directly involved and have a clear say in in how these nbs nature-based solutions are organized next what you have to do is that restoration activities should not be confined to small areas they really should cover the entire ecosystems a very important aspect is the funding that should be a sustainable funding for for larger periods that can be done either by by subsidies from the government it can be done by revolving funds very important and last but not least you need the endurance of stakeholders they have to believe in in the in the functioning and the existence of these nature-based solutions so that is I think why it is not so easy to implement nature-based solutions and that is why the reason why you don't see it in widespread already applied in in many parts of the world so there are still some barriers to to overcome and understanding that these social dynamic processes are key for success shirona thank you very much when actually it's very good the excellent intervention because you were able to provide us examples and also you link what tania has mentioned to us and the three key things is really good to us here is the stakeholders environment and to think about the entire ecosystem and most importantly have a funding for sustainability and also the finite endurance of the people so it's very good so now I would like to have the next question to address to Dr. Banna Cohen so the question is do you think that nature-based solution can provide a win-win solution for not only nature protection but also for a green economic revival delivery direct benefits to the people over to you Banna thank you very much thank you very much for the invitation I'm very pleased to be here yes if I would like to be short I think we do not have any other solution yes it has to have and it has to offer us a solution for a green recovery but let me let me to be a little bit much more in on broader and and starting with presentation my my my my introduction with why I'm here and also in the introduction was mentioned several times by economy and those that context and and just to emphasize that that for systemic change we need we need policymakers we need government we need politics to be engaged and involved and of course a few decades ago it was a very niche just some angios we are talking about nature-based solution ecological approaches today we see that especially in in in Europe but also especially in more on the western part not in part where I am coming in the eastern and and even we are going more east that the the the policy and the the political level it's not yet there so that's why it was created the biased initiative of between 11 central eastern european countries to promote a sustainable bioeconomy sustainable bioeconomy thinking in in this region what I would like to say with this because maybe some of you are shocked how come that we are coming here with the bioeconomy and and biomass use in my opinion it's very important that we are in an urgent situation we we have to go through a sustainable transition process on the other hand agriculture the agriculture is put in a in a in a very specific context on one hand the sustainable transition but on the other hand do we want to valorize our produced biomass and now I am thinking not just biotechnology I am thinking when I'm talking about sustainable circular bioeconomy that we have to produce sustainably the biomass we have to process sustainably biomass and if there is some rest yes circulary use the process so we cannot just push a button on the primary production part and doing sustainable without having an effect on the other side of the chain with the processing so we have to think in a in a systemic way and that requires proper policy making that's require engagement also from the governmental level and not to mention on another important aspect what requires we cannot solve those issues without research and innovation we still need a lot of research and innovation and and without it we cannot go back to the to the nature-based solutions because today we are living in a especially in our region in Eastern Europe in the Central Eastern Asia in an Asian part with we are still on a conventional agriculture part and how we change that conventional agriculture how do we give a solution for our farmers, foresters, aquaculture people that they to transit to a sustainable intensification and in the context of the sustainable intensification of course an ecological part is there ecological intensification and not to mention that which is very key today in the in the context of the EU and EU policy making the agroecology transition which also by the way and probably Christina will talk about more the organic production it's part of it so it's a it's a it's a context there but the big question do we buy in or not how and who will buy in of course we can say in the context of of research and science that what is needed what is important but we need there today to tackle the systemic approach proper policy policymakers so we need the the ministerial level to be engaged and on the other hand yes we need the government the the political level we have to put on the priority for the political agenda and here we are still lagging behind but in my opinion yes that's the important that's what we have to do and that's in the next coming years actually urgently we have to do that to put on the on the political agenda and then yes we can then solve with nature-based solution we can transit our agriculture but in a more systemic and more in a in a system approach way to solve a sustainable agriculture in the context of the agri-food system and in the context of a circular circular economy and circular transition I think I would stop here and yes we can get back with the questions on on some issues yes thank you very much thank you it is very interesting you connect the most important aspects we then talk about the science and then you came to the policy yes the policy making is it's fundamental to realize any concept or any any approach what we are doing especially when it comes to nature-based solution so you mentioned about sustainable transition and also mentioned about the that we should not forget about the whole process the holistic view because it's the technology it is farmed to fork fork so and it and also about the research and innovation and also you gave a very good background to our next speaker the Christina so about the importance of the agroecology thank you very much Baina so now with this I want to go to Christina for the next question so Christina what are the main opportunities and challenges for MBAs adoption in the ECA region because you have a huge amount of practical experience so over to you Christina okay good morning and thanks for the invitation I'm so glad to be there and to share with you our news so first of all I would like to say that organic agriculture is a natural-based solution and if you the research demonstrate that the the organic agriculture has a positive effect in ecosystem services both because a improved carbon sequestration but also at the same time improve biodiversity so the organic practices that are part of the old agroecological practices it's not something separate it's one of the approaches is as you can say cover crops amendments giving up the use of chemicals pesticides giving up the use of herbicides the less use of organic fertilizers or also the more diversified crop rotations more the higher percentage of semi-natural areas or the more diversified farmer structure all these practices that some farmers do more or less some more one some more another it's they have a huge impact in the in the ecosystems in the ecosystem service it's limited because one point that Ben addresses is the landscape in the landscape you we are working also in the landscape because we are working on bio districts now so because we need to to go not only on the single farms also the district how we can combine all these aspects at the landscape but the one important opportunity that from organic agriculture that organic agriculture have the consumers the consumers are have a huge interest in have in buying organic products and during the pandemic this interest increase a lot so because there was a close relationship the people's seeing or feel that the close relationship between health and what they are and the food so this this is one of the the important solution because if you want to do something but you need also and on agriculture you need also the market that the market has to support at the same time the production is not only the support but you need support because it's not easy for the for a farmer to convert in organic agriculture so what we need what was was doing also at the the european union from 1994 is to support through agricultural material measures in the in the cap this the conversion to organic agriculture but now for example the the european union says that the objective for 2030 is 25 percent of the land of european union in organic agriculture it is so ambitious but it's possible it's not impossible but we will need a lot of resources for it because for example at the moment we are they are supporting 9 percent but we need of the land we need to support 25 percent it's a lot so but it's not only the money because also when you talk about also other countries that are outside the european union you need also a national legislation we need also extension services but for having extension services in organic agriculture you have the universities and the agrarian schools train the people in organic agriculture on agriculture approaches so and also the organic the people that convert in organic agriculture need these services to do in the in the best way the the techniques so we need this legislation and these policies so i would like one example only of about one example for the example of the mediterranean area of our organic agriculture we still have the vineyard that is with cover crops you increase both the organic matter in the soil so we have an effect in the climate change but at the same time you increase the biodiversity because so it's there are simple solutions that also at the same time for the farmers it has an organic product they can sell in the organic market so there are win-win solutions but we need to train the farmers we have to support the farmers and the farmers have to play this role but at the same time you have to build the community in this activity has been talk with the bio district with the consumers in their in the organic movement them you have we have this building between consumer or producer but you need to build more in the society to support more but i think that that the consumer the the people are interested on it in this moment i stop here thanks thank you christina it's excellent and it's great to hear your experience and also you connected how science and the policy and everything together and just one thing i just want to go back to what you have said about some things about improving the improving the national legislations and extension services and the training i mean the same thing tania in the beginning has mentioned so we need to also have the funding and so these all it's very good together i think we are discussing all that so i just want to mention to the audience this is your opportunity you have really good experts in the panel so this is your opportunity to ask all the questions you have so we have the question and answer book so please place your questions and also during the next when you have the opportunity you can raise your hands and ask so please send the questions now thank you christina and now i want to give the last question this is actually for all of you one by one i'll ask tania mentioned about the interactions with the sdgs so the question is what are the key sdgs demanding nature-based solutions and most importantly we would like to know how can trade-offs be managed so first i would go to ben ben would you be able to answer this question because it's very important because sdgs are the blueprint of our future so it's very important this is your intervention here over to you ben yeah sure sure thank you thank you shiroma and it's very important that those sustainable development goals are being achieved and i personally with my focus on food security i certainly would say that sdg too getting out hunger of the world that that is a priority and definitely nature-based solutions can can be of help to comply with this achievement if i may also and i i i think i very much like the contribution of christina that if you are going to to do the to do it the right way we should indeed convert to organic agriculture actually it's a shame that we are in a world that relies heavily on pesticides and herbicides that are used in in abundance overused very much and at the same time we don't know where where those where those pollutants are staying if i ask a simple question to to uh farmers so you used pesticides so where where does it stay well they don't know if it stays in the soil or in the water resources nobody knows it it's really a blind eye that we are putting there so in that sense to to to answer your question yeah i think in sdg too is a very important one and and i i definitely would would go the organic way to to achieve both the hunger out of the world thank you at the same time yeah maintaining the quality of the ecosystems yes that's true we need to have the balance now over to you bana what's your answer for that um without question i would say that uh almost all the sdgs can be tackled we need uh not in entirely but we can contribute to the solutions uh with natural based solutions or approach what we have in in in the different countries what i would very much emphasize here that since years we started to discuss the sdgs and we are discussing in the different international organizations the importance to tackle this but what i'm facing when i'm going at the level of countries especially in eastern europe in i'm saying the EU countries eastern countries the policy makers and and the politicians sometimes they feel a little bit far away from from global issues and it's it's it's it's very important in my opinion to argue that yes we have to translate so to say the sdgs for the regional aspects to the country aspects how they tackle in the country in the region in the macro region those sdgs why is important and it was a very important issue emphasized by ben the engagement of the different stakeholders the engagement of the society and and when we would like to have a systemic change and when we would like to tackle so to say the the development goals then we have to go at local level we have to go at the back to the society and this is very difficult to change this is very difficult to intervene there and what to argue and then you have to catch the everyday issues of where they are what they are doing how they are proceeding and starting from there to change and i think it's it's very important to emphasize for in such an event like we have today towards our our governance our our policy makers yes we have to go further on on on translating the sdgs for the local needs we have to we have to tackle the issues and of course one solution would be agroecology let's go much more further today we are using more and more the the living lab approach the by the living lab approach having the quarter difference stakeholders and research together we try to solve some local solutions and then i really see there the translation of the sdgs how to solve how to solve hunger how to solve the different but even the air pollution air quality they are all those should be should be tackled by this and and and and and we should we should foresee to have a proper policy setup for for that thank you i would stop here thank you rina now i agree with the previous speakers are to to go zero hunger goal after this goal i think that very very important are climate climate actions no take a origin action to combat climate change and incident packs we have also the 15 life on land that is very important because a protect restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems um so it's so linked to biodiversity but uh i did also another important because is clean water and sanitation the clean water is very important because if you need a if you have a good management of the ecosystem you can have a clean water and but also important that this is the link in organic with the consumers is responsible consumption and production so the responsibility consumption the consumer awareness the people are warning us about it and they can make a difference when they buy the products this is something that it is very important that it is it is needed the change of the lifestyle so because it is not possible all if you with the people in the world not don't change that this is stop here thank you very much christina after the very informative interventions by our expert families it is time to give the floor to member country simple now we have more than 100 participants here so i um i think you i'm i'm very sure we are you got the message and you have many questions so we strongly encourage you to interview because and share your views if you don't have a question just let us know your opinion or raise new questions and because we are here to answer and our panel expert panel is ready to answer your question so um let's see um whether there are anybody raising hands seems to be okay um so i just want to actually leak little bit um what tanya has mentioned because this is a new uh sometimes it's a new concept in some countries so maybe that's why we do not have a lot of questions so FAO is planning to provide the regional mechanism to improve the capacities of member countries regarding a nature-based solution and christina and ben and barna you mentioned the importance of the engagement of different stakeholders at local level and um so and and mentioned about that in a consumer perspective you need to change the lifestyle and also barna mentioned about policy making we need to look at the whole process in a holistic way so um my question is uh if we are to go to local level and which is the the engagement of different stockholders stakeholders what are the challenges um ben you have mentioned about it but i would really like to know what are the challenges because i think because this the concept it's not uh we we understand there are very few examples so if we if you explain um why we we have issues when we are implementing an engagement of different stakeholders uh difficult little bit more it would be good at local level and country level over to you ben yeah thanks fioroma that that gives us um the opportunity to go in dig a bit deeper in into the issue um the difficulties that we have to implement these nature-based solutions the classical example is the at the watershed level where upstream land users because of their cultivation techniques might impact on the downstream users by for example sedimentation or the overuse of pesticides and herbicides that comes into the water and um this is an a clear example in which you require to cooperate with each other and um one one of the solutions that that has been proposed also by the FAO is the payment for environmental services that is a mechanism that um for example if the downstream users can partly compensate for sound cultivation techniques in the upper part of the basin both the the upstream and the downstream users will will benefit from these from these interventions but that that of course requires that that you jointly work together and assume responsibility for the the the way you use your your natural endowments that can only be done in in in a way that people agree to to help and but also to to penalize neglect so if somebody does not comply with those rules then he should be punished and and should should be fined that that is the consequences of working together in in some way and we see that in and also in in very old um ecosystem ecosystems I mentioned the nomadic pastoralist but also what you see in the fishers in inland lakes they when they have good agreements you can have a very sound and and stable catch throughout the year if you do not comply with these arrangements or if there is no clear uh agreements then you can see declines in in in your catch for example so we we clearly have seen that in in the study that we did in in Benin in Lake Nockway that um improvements on agreements among those fishermen are required to to stabilize the the catch and and restore the ecosystem thank you thank you very much Ben um I actually like to because I know there are um um several NGOs in the uh the audience so if you have any questions this is the time because the our experts have worked with NGOs and um it would be good to have um you if you have any questions we would be able to answer and in the meantime um I would like to ask um um uh if you have experience there are some experience um Eveta are you there so would you be able to mention about the because we have some projects in Georgia so um maybe you can explain a little bit no I'm very sorry I copy pasted the wrong information I wanted to do translation to Russian my apologies okay Eveta it's okay yeah um so um if you wish uh Shiroma I can come in yeah please come please come by now please because it is so difficult um in many countries especially in Central Asia this is a new concept and it is difficult let me let me let me just uh just to complete that not just in Central Asia but Eastern Europe it's let's let's be like on that side um yes my experience with it let me share with you um of course one of the difficulties that in in our country still the traditional approach of the different sector is prevailing so we have a agriculture ministry different ministries industrial ministry and we don't see in in a line the whole valley chain when when it's something produced at the primary level then we lose the site when it's processed so the the whole concept and having an inter-ministerial discussion on the different line with the different valley chain it's it's still missing and that's I think it's important on one hand and on the other hand I would I would say and let's let's state it like this as was Ben saying um when with this traditional system traditional agri-food system uh conventional system we lose the site of the different externalities and at the end of the chain when it's about health question a public health question is nobody tackling it's out it's for the country but it's not not tackled so that's why I think those those issues need to be need to be uh seen from from a more of a systemic way and approach what I wanted to say with this it's it's that we need to create groups at national level national platforms I would say kind of mirror groups on for for the different issues let me share with you an example with the bio-east countries the 11 Eastern European countries we put in place a thematic working group on agroecology and sustainable uh interest yields intensification it's still possible to have in our countries some yield increase uh sustain in a sustainable way but we need research and innovation for that that's a little bit different approach what has western Europe which where you have to decrease or you have to transform the the yields approach and then the agroecology concept and the agroecology approach transition that's again I need to have a little bit of national level mirror groups where you gather those stakeholders who are tackling the issue so I would share this experience which is important in my opinion that in each country it has to be established these kind of national mirror groups national platforms where you discuss the different stakeholders are coming together and discuss especially when you have to form a policy and and and this is important um what else I wanted to say yes the interministerial discussion I already said and I it's a much more at local level which I also already mentioned is the this living lab approach when when you put together the local actors very local actors and and looking into the specificities at the ground bringing together not just research and and farmers or not just some industrial players and research but you have to put together the with the policemen local authorities policymakers researchers to answer those questions which are in a specific need and with a specific subject of of uh on agroecological approaches uh I will stop here I think I was thank you and that is very very impressive I mean giving all this work and it links to the what Tanya has mentioned the way work ahead identification and mapping traditional and local agriculture and linking it with the technology it is very important now we have a in audience elaine chat was really I'm sorry if I please over to you please um interview is your over to you thank you thank you I am speaking on behalf of near lanny europe and central asia and I come from georgia and work for biological farming association there and organica and smallholder farmers association um I think somehow it uh that my comment reflects on uh the previous speakers comment on how confusing it is for eastern especially eastern european audience that we have so many concepts of nature based solutions of climate smart agriculture of etc etc and somehow it's very important to bring it under one umbrella and this one umbrella I believe and our movement believes it's agroecology because it not only integrates and it's a it's an approach which was defined by food and agriculture organization and we know it's 10 elements it is really really very comprehensive and covers all range of issues from natural based solutions so to say uh or working with nature and the traditional knowledge to to the social and political attitude to rural and agriculture development and therefore I think this is a key to to remember when introducing new concepts etc that we have to have one framework somehow and this one framework should be agroecology and it's important also to mention that for example FAO has a tool for agroecological performing performance evaluation which is already being used as an analytical framework and measures the level of agroecological transitions in farms and other productive systems and uh this can be very interesting to also to to further continue with that and also from my the the point of view of the sub-region I represent here I think it's very important to know that we can never uh mainstream natural based solutions if we don't value uh them uh and unfortunately the the policies of the region are more oriented or traditional industrialization we see the very increasing trend of using fertilizers and pesticides everywhere it's increasing and increasing rapidly we had I think about 40 percent increase in pesticides used in several uh in last several years in my country Georgia and if we don't value the traditional knowledge the indigenous knowledge the traditional way of working with nature and if there is no support for soil restoration maintenance of biodiversity organic farming integrated pest management in the framework of supporting agroecological transition of the regional agricultural systems I think we will have serious problems to go get where we all want to be thank you thank you very much Elena I think I totally agree that there are many so many concepts but yeah it's good to mention that you are using the tools for agroecology but I want to actually mention what Varna has mentioned so in with the continent based solution actually it is go beyond the agroecology because you know the little bit because it is the whole process I think Christina maybe with organic agriculture you more agroecology but maybe you can tell a little bit that this is the whole process or maybe Varna can first Christina and maybe Varna can add on that one so do you have any comments on this negative resolution is more yeah over to you yes organic agriculture it pays in an agroecology approach is the growth of together yes agroecology develop other more the social aspect more than organic but for early organic develop more technical scientific issues but it is part of the one word it's not different because you can see most of the agroecologist farmer selling in the organic market so it is part of the one word so yes I would like to talk about other things but we have no time but I appreciate a lot all the discussion the presentation also the observers from Georgia the lady from Georgia that very very good because there is a lot of terms new terms but we're talking about this the similar thing so it is a little complicated thanks a lot thank you very much I think we are all sorry just a very small comment agroecology about agroecology agroecology is not a model of production as it is understood by also FAO concept it's a it's a whole model for the whole food system which includes the social and political aspect and I think together with all the nature-based solutions and traditional knowledge and I think it's very important to acknowledge and to to put clear thank you Elena it's really great to see you have used the agroecology to FAO toolbox very well and yeah I totally agree it is more inclusive so if we need to sort it out these terms so I think that we are now coming to the end of the session now I would really like to have a take home messages if our expert panel one by one give one or two sentence as the take off message first I will go to Ben very short just a short statement and I think it very much is in line with the previous discussion on terminology of whether it's nbs biodynamic farming organic farming it all comes down to respecting the ecological integrity of of ecosystems and if you are going to make an intervention you should improve the quality of these ecosystems that is the central message I like thank you Min and Banna yes it's it's very difficult to catch in one word and one take home message I if I would like to if I would send a message that would be that we are in a process which is a very urgent and we still need to discuss and I would urge to not to simplify this discussion at the early stage yes we have a lot of concepts all the concepts are still under discussion natural based solution agroecology in the different countries at European level in the different continents we are not having the same understanding yes I agree but the most important issue is the process and we are talking about a systemic change thus we need there to buy in the governments the political level we have to put on the priority political agenda on the priority so the one of the priority issues for the political agenda and that would be for me the most important to keep this process because by the process we will learn about the different issues and the and trying to to to put the set the the level of understanding thank you thank you very much Banna and Christina yes I think that we need a radical transformation of our food systems so it is we need to build these alliance between from farm to fork with the idea to build this natural based approach solution or agroecology or organic or biodynamic so but we need these alliance these alliance from farmers because this is one of the point more important and to to create local solutions local solution but also national solutions but putting all the partners together these things are the more important message to me thanks thank you very much Christina I think Ben Banna and Christina you summed up the very rich conversation so we will we'll think about the systemic changes it is urgent and we need to work out the the local and national solution and also having all the stakeholders engaged and the the and the terminologies understood by everybody with this now I would like to invite Raiman Jaled regional program leader to close this technical session Raiman over to you thank you very much Shiroma thank you very much to all the panelists very much appreciated I really enjoyed a lot now this exchange and and the discussion and having maybe not too many questions from from the audience I think gave the opportunity to have really further exchange and both all three um Barna Christina as well as also um as as we we had all of you have given a very good insight at the same time I think it became very clear that there is still a lot to do also in terms of terminology and we heard this also from Ellen at the country level we need to further roll it out and I think the the concept the approach to reach initiative in the next biennium will definitely allow us to do this further and to work with the members but also with the the wide group of stakeholders I mean we we definitely have to bring all the stakeholders in this case together so thank you very much very much appreciated very much looking forward to continue on this route and with that I would like to close this session and um hand over for a short break and we are continuing at 11 30 with our next session on food security nutrition bringing an interesting case also from Kyrgyzstan so take your coffee or if you are later take your lunch for a couple of minutes or stretch your legs and then looking forward to see you um in a 10 minutes or actually in eight minutes already again for the next session thank you very much good morning good afternoon to you all you're very welcome to our eighth session for the FAO informal consultation where we are going to be focused on addressing food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition a really important priority regional priority for for our region my name is Mary Kenny I'm a delivery manager for our regional initiative on transforming food systems and facilitating agri food trade and market access I'm also a food safety officer and it's a real pleasure to be able to facilitate our informal discussions today as with all other sessions we have both English and Russian language uh interpretation so please go to the globe at the bottom of the screen and select your language so today's session this session is on uh the the knee it gives us an opportunity to discuss on one hand uh ongoing challenges that we face to address all forms of malnutrition but also very much focusing on some of the entry points or solutions or activities that can be undertaken at country level and at regional level to address these to ensure that all people at all times have access to a safe and nutritious healthy diet and food addressing and working on food security nutrition is a priority in our region and I think there is a strong knowledge that we face challenges ranging from under nutrition many consumers don't have access to a a diverse diet we also have some pockets of stunting and micronutrient deficiencies particularly in children and women and we also have the increasing challenge of overweight and obesity today's session is divided in three elements so we will start in a moment with a small case study and a short presentation from our colleague Cheng Fang an economist in the region looking at a school meal program and connecting to local food systems and local suppliers in Kyrgyzstan then we will have a panel discussion to go a bit deeper into some of these issues and hear from colleagues and and experiences in the region and thirdly we also very much welcome any comments in the chat or any interventions from you that you believe are important that we take account of as we continue our work in FAO working with you at country level to address all forms of malnutrition so Cheng please you have the floor for introducing the short case study as one area of important work on school feeding programs over to you Cheng thank you thank you Mary for inviting me to share my presentation okay so it's not beginning so I need to sorry start in order okay I will take about five minutes to introduce some highlights of country case studies at the start of our session the title of the case study is connecting school food and nutrition programs with local food system in Kyrgyzstan first I will introduce some background of case study the first point I want to make is a challenge on food security and nutrition in Europe and Central Asia of the past two decades all countries in the region have made big progress in fighting hunger and reduce and the nutrition why and the nutrition is still a concern in the region children of weight and adult obesity are key challenges in the region but on the 2020 region the state of food security and the nutrition report the preference of children of weight is more than double of the world average in 2019 the preference of adult obesity is about 80 percent higher compared with the world average based on the business as you hear the region cannot reach the SDG targets for those indicators by 2030 the second point I want to make many school children have difficulty to access the nutrition food the best on the many studies food nutrition for children have very negative effects for their health and school performance many case study from global and regions have showed this and also the region have overall have a problem to access nutritional food and passive diets in the region because the cost of healthy diets is five times higher compared with the diets with energy only so these have major points to for this project the second is also the challenge to small-holder aquaculture farmers in the regions from the previous seasons we already know the regions the aquaculture producers are made majority are the small farmers they have access problems to markets to inputs to finance to many issues so this project the FLPINOT and a variety of models of school feeding programs with local aquaculture try to link school food program with small producer local production systems the PINOT countries cover Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia so what we have done in Kyrgyzstan firstly the largest center was established in Kamin district of northern east Kyrgyzstan three storage rooms with each about 19 square meters was set up and the house was very well-equipped with cooling system with high standards the laboratory for food safety and quality control was conducted by Kamin district sanitary and epidermia knowledge station the project already made the functions to collect local fruits vegetables from local farmers and distributing to local schools the major outputs and results so far including annually about 3 000 school children from 29 schools can receive the school meals from local products those products including potatoes onions carrot cabbage and other products the products are more safe and diversified if come the seasonality issues and provided annually on the other side local farmers consider the products to school farming program for most short-range chance of supply development reduced vegetables losses and have they can receive higher selling prices and I want to share a little more information Kyrgyzstan and I visited this district and an adjustment center in 2018 we visited the the schools local farmers and the community the region is very traditional in weight production areas in the country however due to small farming size no agriculture productivity the farmers cannot compete with neighboring countries you know for weight production so they decide to switch agriculture land to fruits and vegetables however they still fishing the marketing problem so this project with project center is very timely to develop the modules to to help them to connect you know to for help them to access to markets and also very bad rule for to stabilize their production and income during the winter of 2017 due to international market changes local produce potatoes it's very hard to find the markets and have a lot of losses in potatoes and the price was reduced by half so not just center already put a rule to help local community to start a lot of potatoes in the storage in that time yeah this is very for my good additional information so but also the project have a benefit to local stakeholders you know for participation and a competitive development because the project is fully worked with the local community and the government from a new to a new view of policies and legislations and also set up for the for the stability standards and all is a very good model which can be applied to other more schools and other districts thank you Mary yeah I know I uh uh come up to you thank you thank you thank you Cheng Fang thank you for a very interesting snapshot of important work that's been ongoing in kyrgyzstan and you really showed how through this logistic center farmers and producers of fruit and vegetables are being linked on one hand to a market and a short value chain as you said and then these these produce is then being used in in to provide nutritious diverse food also to school children so this is a very real example of trying to improve nutrition and and healthy diets for for children in in kyrgyzstan no doubt we will come back to the issue of school feeding programs in our in our discussions in today's session um let me move now also to to introduce our panel members um we're very pleased today that we have uh diverse three different uh experts joining us we have mr arman coyoyan deputy minister for economy from the ministry of economy of the republic of armenia we're very pleased that you can join us and share uh insights and experiences from the armenian uh context mr coyoyan um we also are joined by mrs marina uh grinovic uh principal research fellow at the center of research excellence in nutrition and metabolism uh in which is the national institute in the republic of syria and uh marine mariana is also the chair of the capacity development network in nutrition uh in central and eastern europe also known as cap nutra uh an organization and known to many of us also and finally we have also miss uh tursun manbeva chair of the board of the civil alliance for food security from kyrgyzstan so you are all um very welcome and we thank you again and we look forward very much to a rich discussion let me remind all participants that really we welcome any comments or questions in the chat and uh there will be uh time a little bit later also to have some more verbal interventions if anybody would like to contribute uh to the to the discussion so three high level points we're going to look at in this uh in this panel discussion is really focusing in on how can we reinforce our work uh at country and regional level to reduce food insecurity and address all forms of malnutrition we also want to look more deeply at the role of the food and agriculture sector in overcoming nutrition challenges and improving healthy diets for all and finally what are the roles and expectations and support from FAO required as as we enter our work planning also for the next biennium so let me first turn to you miss tursun and since we had a very interesting case study from kyrgyzstan i'd like to we'd like to hear a little bit more from you on what are the key nutrition challenges in kyrgyzstan and you may particularly focus on women and children and and how can these be addressed or what are some of the ongoing entry points in kyrgyzstan to overcome these nutrition challenges uh thank you in america hello everyone uh but unfortunately in kyrgyzstan all three forms of malnutrition are spread out and first of all this micro nutrient is not enough among women and children we have kyrgyz well i will announce this from the 13th 14th because they are so often we have done such research on the national level, but according to this medical demographic research that we had in the 12th year, every third woman of the age of birth suffers from iron deficiency and in the 19th year there was another study on the results that we have almost every second woman suffers from iron deficiency, well, we have an economic period, therefore, we have a wide spread of iron deficiency, but unfortunately the last biological monitoring we had in 2007 and according to the results of that research we had 61 percent of pregnant women experienced deficiency, and among the children this indicator was 41 percent and the next problem is lack of nutrition here we have a long-term growth of 12 percent of children of the first five years of life, but here it is probably important to underline the dynamics of 2006 and the mix of research was 13 percent, but in 2014 this indicator was only 12 percent, that is, for eight years this indicator was reduced to only 1 percent if it can be considered a decrease in terms of insufficient weight and absorption, these indicators we have less than 3 percent and the main reasons for the sharp absorption are diuretinal inflammation and other severe inflammation, including the development of the threshold, literally, before the session, I looked at the statistics we have in Kyrgyzstan, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, for the last 10 years, there is a stable increase in the growth of the developed thresholds, and we here understand that the deficiency of folio is among pregnant women, among non-pregnant women, also, probably, do their part, because the separate weight and the development of the thresholds are growing, and the next problem is the excess mass of the body and fat, if in 2014, it will already be in 2014, we have almost every third woman from childhood age, and the excess mass of the body and fat are sold, that is, 19 percent of them are fat, after 40 years we have almost 72 percent, almost every woman suffers from the excess mass of the body, and at the same time, we do not yet have any such national research, and this is relatively healthy for men, but above the table we also conduct our research, maybe the methodology is a little different from the research of the MDI, but I looked at the indicators of approximately the same, and above the table, most likely from the public, about the same number of men suffer from excess mass of the body, some of the older groups among men from the excess mass of the body, about 3 to 5 percent of the body, higher than among women, and therefore today, in our country, this is such a triple time of loss of nutrition, and the statistics of the heart disease have long been speculating that in the structure of the cause of the death of an adult population, this is the disease of the heart system, the main reason why it is not full-fledged nutrition takes the first place in the structure of the cause of death of an adult population, and as for the children, the loss of nutrition in the micro-intelligence is not enough, the loss of growth in the class of these children is 22 percent, and in this way we have a fairly sharp problem of loss of nutrition, and in addition to that, we have the same quarterly release on the start-up, about the joy of safety, if we look at this, then we have almost a quarter of the population that does not receive protein, does not receive fat, and at the same time, for example, the deficit of calories is not so pronounced, that is, from here, you can probably do that, that is, that the calorie in the population mainly receives exactly due to the liquid component of the most, but such a deficit is exactly among the children's population, it is more pronounced, especially among the children of the first three years of life, children of the first three years of life, the deficit of protein, the deficit of fats and energy is almost one third of their daily needs, and of course we are connecting all these such a high spread, we have a violation of nutrition in our country, but I have all the decisions. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Mambieva. Thank you very much. You've highlighted how there are nutrition challenges across the different population groups in Kyrgyzstan, but also, I think listening to you, it really also shows the importance of collecting data and evidence on the different population groups to really understand what are the challenges, and therefore what are the good interventions, the right interventions, and I'd like to come to you, Deputy Minister for Economy, from the Armenian context. Mr. Koyan, probably there are similar or variable challenges also in the Armenian context, but could you give us a little bit on in terms of what are some of the ways or the entry points to try to reduce and address these challenges, let's say the actions, so we understand the problem, but where are you putting the emphasis in the Armenian context? Thank you very much, Kemi. Good afternoon, colleagues. Dear attendees, at the outset, I would like to specifically thank the Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia for consistency and dedication in organizing the informal consultation, which is indeed a unique opportunity to outline regional priorities and in line with existing challenges and possible solutions for each country in the region. Yes, Ms. Mamir Bayava in very detailed introduced the problems and I would like also to come to this very important issue from a governmental management side. I strongly believe that in order to fight malnutrition and hunger, a well-developed food value chain is an imperative together with efficient coordination among the stakeholder groups. Based on my own experience, I would like to highlight the importance of synchronization of the strategies, action plans of the stakeholders. Therefore, the development of multi-sectoral strategy is the key for bridging the gaps among interdependent businesses. Finding compromise solutions and by progressive collaboration create value for the final consumer, resulting in a collective competitive advantage. The industrial economy is committed to creating sustainable food systems that can function even in emergency situations and continue producing food, increase expert earnings, and enhance the population's consumption as well as reduce poverty in rural areas. Having said that, a combination of policy implementation instruments based on multi-sectoral strategy as well as public awareness campaigns to advocate for healthy diets and lifestyle is essential. So the government of the Republic of Armenia adheres to its fundamental commitment of taking active steps to ensure both physical and economic access to diversified food, thus meeting health requirements along all layers of population. However, it must be noted that besides the diet's quantity, its quality is an essential factor. Is it true that national food security programs mostly put stress on food availability, emphasizing the rate of growth of agriculture production and self-provision? With this regard, policy gaps in food accessibility, diversity of calories, and malnutrition status still remain a challenge for us. However, together with the challenges, there are also opportunities which should be seized. And first and foremost, I share the FAO's recommendation on setting up of interministerial mechanism responsible for national food security and nutrition strategies. Policies and programs together with establishment of multi-stakeholder platforms and frameworks at local and national levels to design, implement and monitor food security and nutrition strategies, legislations, policies and programs, not less importantly, promote healthy diets by developing domestic demand for local production. A key element of this effort is to encourage the increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. Thank you. Thank you very much. You've covered really quite a continuum and many different important aspects there, including mentioning already the importance of the consumer and raising I'd say knowledge on one hand, but also awareness and demand for healthy diets, but also having functioning complete value chains that provide this nutrition. So I think this also, if you were listening to the previous session, they were also talking about holistic and multi-sectoral approaches. So we also know that to ensure access to an affordable diet for all, we need these multi-sectoral approaches, as you said as well. Mr. Coyoy, and I know that before I move on, I wanted to give you the opportunity to intervene on school feeding programs from the Armenian context we heard from Kyrgyzstan earlier. Anything to add in terms of how important or any successes on this in Armenia? Thank you very much. I would like just to add that the increase of demand for healthier food can also be promoted to the development of school feeding programs and catering in other social settings such as hospitals and group homes. Involving local producers in school feeding programs and supplying other social institutions with vegetables and fruits, especially processed fruits, will also help to develop local food supply chains and increase the incomes of local producers. With this regard, I would like to stress our partners FAO's invaluable contribution in terms of the pilot project, strengthening food security and nutrition and selected country of the Caucasus and Central Asia implemented in Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and in Armenia, the pilot is establishing school yards in three schools in the Ararat region. This will build the capacity of school staff to produce fresh vegetables for school feeding, thus improving school food ratios as well as their nutrition value. By selling surplus to local markets, extra budgetary school feeding funds for improving infrastructure will be replenished and the school yards will be utilized to spread knowledge on sustainable agriculture practices and nutrition. By the more WFP in Armenia also implements a pilot program with a universal targeting criteria by which all children enrolled in primary school grade from one to four and preschools receive school ratios equivalent to USD 0.25 per child day. So daily meal plans are based on approved menus and technological cards as school meals positively reduce poverty rates by 0.4 percentage points in Armenia. For one USD investment in Armenians school feeding program, there is a USD 7.1 USD return of investment within five years in the form of improved health and education among school children and increased professional productivity for the benefit of themselves and country economy. So this is really a good opportunity to thank our partners for inclusive cooperation. doubtlessly the government in eastern takes the responsibility to provide institutional and informational support for raising the public awareness related to nutrition issues. Thank you much. Thank you. Thank you. And I think on that note, I want to switch now to Ms. Gorinovic to you, Marianna, because we're talking here about the role of the consumer, but also the consumer having access to knowledge and to know what is a healthy diet or to know how to mix the foods that they consume for themselves and their family. So there's a priority given in our region and globally to governments to have food, what do we call food based dietary guidelines, and they play a key role, I know, in being able to guide us as consumers. So why could you give us in your own words, why are food based dietary guidelines important in our region and a little bit on the status of them? Yes, thank you very much for inviting me and I am pleased to be here and participated this meeting. As you already hear the hype, there is a high prevalence of triple burden of malnutrition in Europe and Central Asia under nutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and also over nutrition. And this situation urge countries to prevent all forms of malnutrition and improve diet, food environment and develop evidence based food based dietary guidelines. Food based dietary guidelines are the important actually tools for sustainable healthy diet for nutrition policies and public health. National food based dietary guidelines provide the specific context, advice and principles of healthy diet and lifestyle, which are rooted on South evidence and respond to a country's public health and nutrition priorities, food production and consumption as well, patterns, social culture influences, food composition data, food availability and food culture. Therefore it is important to build a national food based dietary guidelines. They are intent to establish a basis for public food and nutrition, health and agriculture policies and also nutrition education program to foster healthy eating and habits and lifestyle. What are the actually food based dietary guidelines? They provide advice on foods, food groups and dietary patterns to provide required nutrients to the general public to promote overall health and prevent chronic diseases. They are illustrated in many countries on different way, such as pyramids, circle, plate or some other diagrams with quantity of different food groups or portion sizes include recommendation for intake fats, oils, sugar, limited intake of saturated fatty acid, water intake, physical activity, etc. In many countries they are different as we can see in FAO repository online. Food based dietary guidelines can serve to guide the wide range of food and nutrition, health, agriculture and nutrition and education programs and policies, therefore represent actually the unique opportunity to impact diets and food system from production to consumption. They need to guide environmental, institutional and policy guidelines and be used as a communication tool by health and education professional with dissemination and implementation to public in different sectors, health, agriculture, education and also in different settings like schools, community and workplace. National food based dietary guidelines are important tool that government can also use to inform, evaluate and also align their policies and programs that aim to promote healthy diets using languages and images that are easy to understand for public health and also for policymakers. National food based dietary guidelines are the context specific translation into foods and meals, what that's actually mean that healthy diet and advice how to achieve. By involving government and other stakeholders as a major responsible actors, food based dietary guidelines are one of the main drivers in the transition towards sustainable food system. The development of the food based dietary guidelines can also contribute to the achievement of the sustainable development goals, especially goal one, two, also three and 12 for a healthy diet and create safe and supportive food environments for healthy nutrition at all ages and prevention of malnutrition. Evidence based national dietary guidelines doesn't exist in many Europe and Central Asia countries in Central Asia and Caucasus countries and in Balkan region in Serbia and Montenegro they don't we don't have it. In addition many of the existing food based dietary guidelines need to be updated and develop new as evidence based healthy and more environment sustainable. Also several international and regional meetings outcomes highlighted the importance of the developing the national food based dietary guidelines and they role in improving healthy diet of the population and prevention of the malnutrition in all population groups. For example, second international conference on nutrition ICN2 Rome declaration and the framework for action recommendations 13 as part of the recommended action for sustainable food system promoting healthy diets which means that each country need to develop adopt or adopt very appropriate international guidelines of healthy diet. Also during the FAO original symposium on sustainable food system for healthy diets in Europe and Central Asia which was held in the 2017 in Budapest organized by FAO original office key messages were also addressed the needs for developing each country national food based dietary guidelines and also the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition smart one of the smart commitments for each country by December 2020 each country has to develop national dietary guidelines for children adults and the elderly. So this this this exploration mean that we need to be very active and start working in the FAO support is very important in this section. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Mariana and yeah we've understood that they they need to be very specific to the country context. Yes. The dietary guidelines and the guidance. It's also interesting that they they show us better what mix of foods to consume but also even portion size and issues and other related issues which we know are also very important for addressing overweight and obesity but also food waste issues. So they're really bringing together of a lot of important issues. Yes. I noted my colleague Melissa Vargas included a link there to some of the work from FAO and materials available from the Food and Nutrition Division and Headquarters. So thank you for that. Mariana before I move on I'd like to can you briefly we are a little bit against the clock now in the what are some of the key steps I mean don't maybe give me all but what are some of the key steps that you would do at country level to develop the food-based dietary guidelines. Thank you. Thank you. It is recommended that we develop national food-based dietary guidelines and it requires stepwise approach and the FAO have a specific methodology in their support in countries to developing. So we need to have all research infrastructure and knowledge and food composition database and the national dietary surveys and many other and of course involvement of many stakeholders and government support. So first step is that each government including the plan developing of the food-based dietary guidelines and allocation of the budget but the stepwise scientific process approaches that we have to make a review of the identification of the health related diet health related problems that also nutrients and the quality of the nutrition dietary intake also food relevant for the developing food-based dietary guidelines and food consumption patterns then diet modeling pilot testing and optimizing translation actually optimal diet into food-based dietary guidelines different graphical presentation endorsement from the government in implementation and dissemination with plan or strategy and finally monitoring and evaluation of the implementation. Of course this successful development dissemination and implementation of the food-based dietary guidelines require participation by the range of public sector stakeholders and high level political support is crucial and in many of our countries there are lacking harmonized and standardized updated food composition database nutritional tools softwares food consumption data collection national dietary surveys and these are the basic elements for the starting in developing food-based dietary guidelines so we need to prepare this first step in order to plan developing the national food-based dietary guidelines for our region thank you. Thank you thank you Mariana we can hear you're very passionate and an expert in this in this area as well and in Kyrgyzstan I know that you are you are working and you have a vision to work further on food-based dietary guidelines so maybe Ms. Mambeve you can briefly give us an insight into that you need to one minute yeah thank you thank you very much. In the past group we entered the government office that is the Ministry of Education there were the academic sector, the business sector, the civil alliance and free that is independent lawyers we also have an agency and in the working group, first of all, we studied the material of the FAO on the site of the FAO for which they helped us a lot for which we are very grateful to the expert FAO who developed these guidelines but unfortunately not all the guidelines were available in Russian and we have a working group, mainly very few who speak English there, and therefore it was quite difficult for us to work, the working group and we collected all the research that we have conducted in Kyrgyzstan starting from the 13th year in real time, in general, what kind of research is there and when collecting these data, we naturally paid attention to the quality of the data so that it would be research that had a good methodology and had a proof base and our working group presented an analysis of the situation in all directions including food safety, food poisoning, food safety, school food, that is, everything that concerns food and the food storage, including the working group conducted several such meetings and in the final result, the working group decided on the conclusion that the members of the working group are interested in all of us, we really want to have operating principles based on products so that somehow we can fight, that is, we plan all our events, but we realized that we do not have enough knowledge and therefore the working group came to such conclusion that we need, first of all, to teach the members of the working group so that they work on the development of such operating principles so that they then had the opportunity to continue after their development and to promote the development of these operating principles and the following we realized that we still need a consultant, a desirable international experience, a voice-over, so that he would accompany our working group in the process of development and in the process of when we will implement these principles, the third is that the working group came to the conclusion that it would be good for us to study the experience of the country, the experience of the country in our region, in the European region, where operating principles are developed and are successfully implemented. And here is our civilisation, we have been working for the last two years in the two pilot areas of our country and during this work, we have been convinced that in the regions at the local level, people who should be responsible for the sale of safe food, they have not enough potential and therefore, probably, after all, training should be carried out, and we are starting from the local level. And recently, we had a revolution, and today the practical committee of the minister has completely changed and a completely new people have come, and the preliminary communication also indicates that even at the national level, it would be good to have the right to increase the potential of the work in which the national level is. There is such a problem, and therefore, we have turned to the State Office of the VAL, maybe this support of our working group, because we realized that we have to develop ourselves, and most importantly, it will not work out. And now UNICEF is planning to run, not only UNICEF, but also UN and SAIT, and other partners on the development of national research, which will capture the source of food and micronutrient ingredients. That is, we will have completely new data in this year, which could serve as a good basis for us to develop national principles on the basis of the same products. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Bavia, and I'm very pleased that thank you for highlighting the specific progress made, but also maybe some of the remaining challenges, and we are looking forward to our ongoing collaboration through the regional FAO nutrition project on different aspects of nutrition, including food-based dietary guidelines, I'd like to encourage, if anybody would like to, in addition to our panel members, please feel free to take the floor. I know that there's a great energy in this year, the year of the UN Food Systems Summit as well. I think traditionally, let's say in the past, nutrition was spoken about by the health sector and the nutrition sector, but I think the UN Food Systems Summit and many, the cross-sectoral work that Mr. Koye and spoke about as well, is really putting nutrition in a broader context as well. How do we need to continue to improve our food systems or transform our food systems to ensure access to safe and nutritious food for all, and to also shift, as in Action Track 2 of UN Food Systems Summit, to shift our consumption patterns to more sustainable consumption patterns for better health, but also for better planetary and better environment. Okay, good. We have a hand raised. I've been notified. Please, can you take the floor, Ms. or Mr. Jamal Gulova? You have the floor, please. And please, if anybody else would like to intervene, kindly put a comment or raise your hand and we will, we will happy to have your input. Thank you, Ms. You have the floor, Aida. Thank you. We think that this will give the opportunity to address the questions that were pointed out earlier about the lack of nutrients, the lack of diversity in the school organization of school food, so I think participating in small firms is extremely important. And I would also like to say about the importance of children's food during quarantine or lockdown, when schools did not provide hot food, as was already stated in the Sofi reports, that this is one of the reasons for the lack of children. Therefore, I would like to address this attention. Thank you. Thank you very much for again highlighting the important role that school feeding programs can play in order to also improve the diversity of the nutrition that children have at a young age and also information and understanding about our food and where our food comes from in addition. I don't see any other, I wanted to, I believe Can I intervene for a second? Yes, I apologize, sorry, please do, I didn't see your hand. Yes, go ahead. I was raising hand physically, not virtually, that's why you missed me. So just want to add that FAO's expertise in drafting multi-level framework of action to support nutrition will be highly beneficial. As the reason of poor targeting is indeed the lack of multi-level interdisciplinary task force, this might lead to the implementation of unsuitable policies. Hence an interdisciplinary approach and a multi-level framework of action are crucial for identifying important policies. Great, thank you. Thank you very much and yes, I think that comes back to that working on nutrition is really cross-sectoral and not the domain of the nutritionist or the health sector alone and that if we really want to work and overcome the challenges we need, the private sector but also right across the government working together. So we hear your call for more support on multi-level and interdisciplinary task forces to have better policy coherence as well. We have Judith, Judith Hitchman, I believe. You may have your hand raised and then I also believe Nancy Aburto maybe would like to also intervene. Judith, please. Thank you very much Mary and thank you very much to all the speakers. One thing that came across in the presentation of the Sophie report in New York two days ago that is the state of food security in the world is that due to the pandemic stunting and malnutrition in children has increased very severely around the world largely because of school closures and the failure to be able to distribute school meals. Now I know from talking to Ida that food was distributed to children through the villages in Kyrgyzstan during school closures. Small scale producers in peasant agriculture right around the world were very very aware and conscious of this problem and brought food into city centres ensuring that the most vulnerable and children did get access to healthy local agroecological food and I think that in terms of disaster preparedness the school meal and also other institutional meals like meals for hospitals and homes for the elderly and such like really do need to have strong links to local authorities who in turn need to have very strong links to small scale local producers who may at the same time be having difficulty bringing their food that they have grown and produced to market so we do need to prioritise ensuring that children continue in all circumstances to get healthy food and there is also an important role to be played here for small scale food producers processing either onsite or in women's cooperatives locally so that there are also some processed foods that are local available in the case of pandemics and things like that so thank you very much I think those are really important elements that need to be taken into consideration. Thank you thank you very much Judith and thank you for yeah drawing our attention again to the need to see the impacts on on on individual and household nutrition and food security due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as well so I need to continue to see if there are negative effects there. Next I'd like to give the floor to Nancy Burto. Nancy is the deputy director for the food and nutrition division of FAO in headquarters and her Nancy and her team have been very active in the chat and they've drawing our attention also to FAO's vision and strategy for FAO's work in nutrition which was recently endorsed in May 2021 and so Nancy please we we how can we really bring things down to the country level as well and continue to have a bottom up and further entry points over to you. Thank you Mary so much and thank you for the opportunity to share today and I recognize that I only have a few minutes which is unfortunate because I've heard so many fantastic interventions today that just really bubble up lots of ideas on strengthening our our collaboration with the the the global movement to support healthy diets and nutrition and then that that action that I'm hearing from from the countries on the ground which is all very very exciting but in my short time I'll just highlight that FAO has just endorsed a new vision and strategy for our work in nutrition and this helps to frame that FAO's support to nutrition really is about healthy diets and it's about supporting how we that work in agriculture and food systems have such a role to play for healthy diets and I and I've heard this echoed a few times that there's this lingering thought that nutrition is somehow a health issue and needs to be covered by the health sector. However, good nutrition starts with what we eat and so clearly there's a role to play so in this absolute vital role to play and so in our vision and strategy we've laid out that narrative and prioritized how it is the work that FAO do can can support countries in their goals around healthy diets and having engagements like we're having today helps us hear what those priorities are and helps us at at the global level think how we can elevate those priorities as well and and that speaks to also what Mary brought up in terms of the UN Food Systems Summit and all the activity in the Food Systems Summit that also supporting that narrative of the importance of food and food systems for for nutrition but we all have a voice in that summit it's a people's summit and one thing I'd like to flag and I think my colleagues Melissa Andrea have have shared this in the chat and if they haven't I can invite them to do so there is a school meals coalition that's being formed as part of the Food Systems Summit which is a platform to help elevate the the needs on the ground for school meals support and the the bottlenecks the needs for capacity I heard that capacity supports needed so bringing all that together for coherent collective action so I invite you to to explore the opportunity for joining that school meals coalition for those of you who who may not already have joined and I've also dropped into the chat and I can do it again if that's easier this new vision and strategy for FAO's work in nutrition is now available in Russian and I've dropped that in the chat and welcome you to explore that as well to see how it can support you thank you Mary thank you thank you Nancy and thank you for advising us of the school feeding coalition as part of the UNFSS this is new information to me and maybe two others thank you just in in terms of also just to let the audience know at at regional level we are also working on a let's say a follow-up strategy on how to to try to make the global strategy also very specific to our region so today's discussion is also very informative in identifying further the important entry points and and priorities for us to work on together in the region we are coming to the end of our time I wanted to give the panel members one last opportunity if they would like to add any final take-home message or indeed any call in terms of the role of food and agriculture sector as well in improving access to healthy diets I don't know Mr. Kojayan if you would like to give a final take-home message from your perspective thank you thank you very much Kiana I think that I have already shared my approach of for creating sustainable food systems and I'm also being the national convener for Armenia for the Food Systems Summit so what I see that the problems that we are experiencing sometimes we think that we are alone with those problems and we find out that a lot of countries are experiencing the same problem and I think that cooperation between the countries I was talking about in my speech only creating coalitions in different levels multi-level stakeholders but now I'm talking about also creating coalition in country level in different country level country level coalitions and I think that will lead us to an efficient use of all our resources and we will succeed for sure. Excellent thank you Mariana let me come to you please we very much appreciated all your rich interventions today on food-based dietary guidelines but perhaps you have an additional take-home message. Yes thank you very much I think that one of the important thing is that countries need methodology guide how to develop and revise existing food-based dietary guidelines or develop new taking into consideration the specific country situation and to incorporate new FAO WHO sustainable healthy diet guiding principles published in 2019 regarding to health aspect environment impact and social culture. This is really neat and we need to follow these 16 principles for sustainable healthy diet and it is published and available online it is one thing and another is a need for methodological guidance to support countries and policy makers to shift toward environment with sustainable healthy diets and food system transformation. We are always talking about food system transformation but I think that countries need this kind of the guidance. FAO and WHO published in 2018 one country one guiding document for the implementation and of the policy recommendations from the framework for action from the ICN-2. This was I think that it was very useful but I think that there is need for new guidance from FAO in collaboration with WHO but I think that this kind of the because many countries don't know where to start. Yes we need the food system transformation but clear guidance with clear messages and from the beginning how to go further and of course what is also missing I realized that what I was working in the inventory of the Central Eastern European countries that indicators and food system how to measure and identify the food system status in each country. We are talking about food system transformation but after five years we will not be able to measure the beginning and what we achieved so we have to make clear indicators for and follow this kind of the evaluation and measurement thank you. Thank you Marianne and okay that's a whole other discussion on measuring the food system it's very important and there is work ongoing in that space and guidance available from FAO and other partners who are working in this in this area we can okay good finally miss Turson I would like to give you the floor for a very brief because I need to we need to wrap up then a summary from you please. Yes indeed there is such a problem relative to the variety of access to different food here especially the last pandemic after the pandemic and now we also have weather conditions something is happening and a very sharp departure of access to various food we had research that was 16-18 years ago until the pandemic access to various food, that is, for example, you can say how much population we have consumes fruits every day, yes, it is less than 70 percent, it does not consume every day, arachnidic acidity of fruits, although we still have such a southern country and many other fruits, but the price is not high, and there is always access to them, but after 18 years of research in the mix of research there we looked at how adequate the nutrition of children for the first two years of life, that is, the acceptable variety is 56 percent, that is, the minimum acceptable nutrition is 43 percent of children, that is, all these indicators say that we have in the country the reality is that this access to various healthy food the next one I wanted to answer is we recently initiated the law prohibiting unhealthy food advertising unhealthy food, but when we have already worked with lawyers with deputies, it turned out that we do not have a definition of what to consider unhealthy food, yes, here we are in general in the country, too, according to the research of the brain, the source of unhealthy food, we consume salt twice as much as recommended by the brain, salt, yes, such a content of salt in products, that is, ready to be considered harmful, for example, such a content of transgenic fats, the food product is considered harmful, but in this way, it turns out that we can not even legally fix it if we do not have a clear definition of what to consider unhealthy food, that is, we are with such a difficulty, too, and that is why Judy said that there is, that is, the world, the world said that there is a rule, there is a clear definition of unhealthy food, but then, yes, we will still need to have a definition of what we will consider unhealthy food, but if we are now unhealthy food, including all these products that are fast food, yes, here is a fast food, if we include it, then we will need to work with the business sector, that is, we will not need to provide any evidence why their products, the same shawarma, for example, unhealthy food and banned advertising, that is, there are such moments that we will still need to decipher and work on this too, on the other hand, when this pandemic was the first time when all of us were locked up at the quarantine school and institutes, that is, children just did not go to school, of course, products, that is, they did not provide any food, they did not provide any dry fruits, they did not deliver, yes, and now the question is also where did these money go, because the government allocated money, this is one aspect, another aspect, but purely this is my opinion, it seemed to me that after all, such a state should have a program or a strategy how to react with such a situation, that is, there may be some kind of readiness plan through an ordinary situation, that is, if something like this happens, then who needs what help should be provided, yes, because when we were locked up at the quarantine school, it seemed to me that our government was so lost and the population was on their own, the government on their own, only the business sector, the civil sector, they created in time and began to collect these product packages and distribute them, but it turned out the same, it turned out the problem that some families would get two or three times, some needy families did not get at all, because there were no specific lists of especially needed people, and therefore, this is the situation, I thought, maybe we still need to organize the development of such a plan, readiness through a situation, everyone there knew in their own village how many people are needed and who needs the first help to be provided and the product set, who needs to be delivered first, so this is a very big problem and this is a very bright problem, so to speak, at the time of the first pandemic, but then already today, thank you, thank you, thank you so much, I want to conclude in less than one minute and then hand the floor to Mr. Raimondielle, thank you all, thank you all to our distinguished panel members and thank you to all contributors and participants to the discussion, in the chat, you were very active and also verbally, we have heard very clearly the different key points that were raised, I'm not going to mention them all, but cost of diets, really working still to ensure access to diverse diets and the role that dietary guidance and food-based dietary guidance can play, linking local producers into short value chains that can provide nutritious food, building capacities among those working directly on nutrition, but also in the private sector and on the agriculture sector as well, and finally looking at also the impacts of what's happening now during the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic as well, so thank you once again, it was a real pleasure to hear from all of you and to thank Slovenia and Croatia also for their examples of school feeding programs and all the other rich information that was shared in the chat. I hand over to you now Raimond and my apologies that we went over a bit on the time, thank you very much. Thank you very much Mary, very, very interesting, very fascinating and let me definitely thank you all, particularly now on these last sessions, the speakers as well as of course also the moderators and the presenters, I think we had great interventions from the panels also today, outlining also the different areas in the areas of one health, nature-based solutions as well as now with the last one also on food security and nutrition. I think particularly Mary has summarized already some of the key points under the food security and nutrition panel, I will also not take the time as I see we are losing the audience, I will not take the time to make a summary on the other two panels we had also today, but just to make it clear the end of this one, the end of this session brings us now to the end of the discussions in the last three days of all the technical events which we had, where we had these rich discussions under the different aspects and given also a lot of food for thoughts also further how to address it, how to bring maybe also the concepts which we have in the different areas, digitization in the case also of venue chains in the case of nature-based solutions, what we heard also today, how we're bringing this further also to the country level. We will present a summary of these conclusions tomorrow in the senior officials meeting, we hope that we are going to share with you this summary before the meeting either because we have to put it also into two languages either tonight or tomorrow morning, so I'm not going to summarize it further, but I think there is a clear couple of points which we need to take already into consideration across the discussions also. We need to increase further our holistic approach, we need a multi-stakeholder approach and we need to have a multi-sector role, let's say emphasis to all the challenges in order to be able to use the knowledge and there is an enormous richness of the knowledge available in the region and to use this knowledge and to translate it into the action on the ground in the different technical areas. So let me really thank you for this fascinating discussion and for all of you staying with us to listen. So what is going to happen tomorrow? We have the senior officials, we're starting also again at nine o'clock as we did it in the last three days, we will present the results of the discussions of the consultation and what I want to emphasize also the tomorrow session is not going to be publicly available. So we had the last three days with the interesting technical discussions, we made it available also to the public and so tomorrow we will have in fact only the persons who are registered, so the members, the CSOs and the private sector and so we would really like to create a space for the open discussion on these conclusions and on the summary and we will also have not a break tomorrow because we will continue and we will move from the summary then into the presentation of the draft agenda for the European Regional Conference. Nabil Ganji the Secretary of the Regional Conference is going to do that and we will also present the draft and the annotated agenda of the upcoming European Commission on Agriculture Session in October and so we are looking of course also for you feedback and participation and then we are going to close the meeting tomorrow and this informal consultation with Vladimir Olegovic, the regional representative and assistant director general. So thanks again for being with us today and I wish you a nice afternoon, good lunch for the ones who are in the same time zone as me, others nice evening, have a quick rest from these interesting three hours if you stayed to all the three sessions and looking forward to see you also tomorrow. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.