 Excellent. Thank you very much. Welcome, welcome everyone to this international technical webinar and thank you very much for joining. Today's webinar is on nutrition sensitive agriculture and food systems. I just wanted to say a few words about our series of webinars. We, we regularly deliver webinars on a number of thematic areas related to the global challenges so related to climate change related to water and souls management related to nutrition to food systems, and these webinars are jointly organized by the FLE Learning Academy, Agrinium and UNS Cup. Today's webinar is also however organized in collaboration with our colleagues from the UN scaling up a nutrition movement, and they will also be collaborating and organizing with us all the nutrition related webinars this year in 2021. So, this year, for this webinar, we have a very, very rich program organized. We have with us, Patricia Fracassi, who is a colleague from the nutrition, the FAO nutrition division. We have with us, Tokie Motsuagole, who will be sharing with us the experience from Botswana, Alfredo Echevaria, who will be talking to us about the linkages between food and sustainability, who he is from Costa Rica. And we are very, very pleased to have with us also Gerda Verben, who is the UN Assistant Secretary General and also the coordinator of the scaling up nutrition movement. So, without further ado, I would like to give the floor to my to my colleague Patricia Fracassi. Patricia, the floor is yours. Thank you so much. Thank you. My name is Patricia Fracassi and I lead the work on nutrition sensitive policies and program support in the FAO food and nutrition division. I'm here with my colleagues who will respond to your questions in the chat. We are here today to present our resources on nutrition sensitive agriculture and the food system, and we will start by sharing a short opening video on our e-learning courses, three key features or quality. First, the content has been tailored to the competencies and needs of three types of target audiences, nutrition experts, professionals in nutrition relevant sectors, and senior management. The content is designed to provide them with evidence, but also with inspiring examples and case studies. While the content is tailored to target audiences, it can be adapted to facilitate the uptake based on the context of each country and localities. Second, the e-learning courses build on the well-known toolkit developed specifically for policy advisors and program implementers. This easily adaptable toolkit includes four elements, the key recommendations, the checklist and guidance to operationalize the recommendations. They in practice book with a list of 20 key interventions and the compendium of indicator for nutrition sensitive agriculture. The third quality is that both the toolkit and e-learning modules adopt a food systems approach that encompasses all functions from food production to food consumption. 20 interventions are identified as entry points, organized according to the functions of the food systems and cross-cutting issues, including food quality, safety and hygiene, food loss and waste, women empowerment and nutrition sensitive value chain. Thought provides support to government and partners on project design implementation and evaluation based on these entry points. For example, we collaborate on the global agriculture and food system program to identify nutrition sensitive solutions within large scale investments. In 2020, we developed a capacity development roadmap to support the implementation of fast revised vision and strategy on nutrition. The objective of the roadmap is to enhance member states capacities to design and implement context appropriate and evidence informed policies and actions that promote healthy diets for all from sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems. The food systems, the capacity development roadmap looks at the individual and organizational level of capacity development as well as the enabling environment. It considers four functional capacities. So it looks at policy and normative. It looks at knowledge for evidence based decision making. It looks at partnering and it looks at implementation supported by human and financial resources. The capacity development roadmap was tailored for an internal audience within FEO, but also beyond. So in addition to government decision makers, we looked at innovative ways to engage non state actors, including civil society organization and private sector in particular small and medium enterprise, as well as parliamentarians. And we also recognize the importance of building effective relationships with regional intergovernmental entities, national academia and research training institutes and with other UN and development partners. In 2020, to support this work, we conducted a review of all capacity development activities within FEO at headquarter regional and country level. What came out from this review was that most of the activity are concentrated at the level of national governments and focus on nutrition sensitive policies and programming. However, there are considerable opportunities to engage with other partners, namely local government, parliamentarian, civil society organization, private sector, as well with a wide range of topics, including market linkages and value chain, school food and nutrition, nutrition education and consumers awareness and the cross cutting topic of food loss and waste. Based on this review, we identified a number of priorities, which we are looking for to increase partnership. So looking at promoting the use of dietary indicators, improving the evidence from an evaluation of food systems impact on diet, engaging the private sector, mostly the small and medium enterprises, as well as brokering inclusive dialogue with the recognition of the importance of civil society, including consumers association, and most importantly, looking at ways to adapt the capacity development resources and tailor them to the needs of different audiences. Finally, you will see, and this is highlighted in blue that this cannot happen without building the internal organizational capacity. And in FEO we have a specific work stream called mainstreaming nutrition that looks at internal capacity development process. So this is a very brief overview of the capacity development roadmap, which is really meant to support the uptake of our resources and work in collaboration with partners at country level. Here you will see the available resources. Also later Christina will share them again with you with all the link. You can see that we have a lot of resources and we are really working and trying to identify ways to increase the uptake. So we are looking for partners and we really hope that this can be also an opportunity to learn from you. And Christina, there was also a pool I think that was put out to see the equities. Okay, so maybe you would like to ask participants to do the poll right now. Yeah, that would be great. Okay, excellent. Thank you very much, Patricia. And I don't know if you would like to wait for the results of the poll or you would like to. Let's wait maybe just one minute and a half. And then Patricia can briefly comment on this poll and then you can move ahead with the next speaker. Okay. Thank you. I hope I was there within my time. Actually, you were perfectly on time so we even have the time for the poll and to have a look at the results. However, but this is probably going to take a little bit of time so maybe I will ask. If you could please go ahead, the floor is yours. Thank you. Or you would like, Patricia, you would like to wait for two to see the results. Maybe Patricia, you can start commenting on the poll now and then I will close it. I am not seeing the results. Sorry. I will display it now. I will display it now. 70% people has commented. Hold on a second. Thank you so much. Here you go. Okay. So you see, do not use. So that's really important to see. But I'm quite encouraged that people at least know about the resources. And I think it will be great to find ways to be able to use the resources. Yes, I think that the first thing to say is that these webinars are also a way to try to get to raise awareness of people about the courses that exist. The FAE learning courses that are available on all these thematic areas. And as you say, Patricia, we need to maybe find other ways to increase a little bit of the uptake and the outreach. Okay, excellent. Thank you very much. I would like to give the floor now to stocking who will be sharing with us the experience in Botswana. So stocking the floor is yours. You have about 15 to 20 minutes. You have to turn on your microphone. You're muted stocking. Yes. Okay. Excellent. We see your presentation just now maybe the sound. All right. Thank you. Excellent. We hear you. Go ahead. Thank you. All right. Good afternoon, everybody. I would like to thank the organizers of this webinar for inviting me to participate. And my presentation will be slightly different from what Patricia was presenting. But I think it's an experience worth sharing and colleagues can learn from our experience and maybe copy some of what we've done in what I'll be talking about today. My presentation will be focusing on describing how Botswana partnered with a UN agency in order to help in building a resilient and sustainable horticultural value. I'll just quickly run through my first slide, which gives the elements shows the elements of the food system and a definition of nutrition sensitive agriculture. As we see, this is similar to what Patricia was showing on the food system. There are various players in the system. And when you talk about nutrition sensitive agriculture, we are referring to a production system that ensures that we get a variety of food which is affordable and nutritious, culturally appropriate, safe, adequate in terms of quantity and quality to meet the dietary requirements of a population in a sustainable manner. The definition is somewhat very, very much similar to a definition of food security. So the fact that we have so many players in the food system provides an opportunity for us to intervene at any convenient point. So if you want to develop a resilient and sustainable food system, we have to be able to identify opportunities for meaningful entry into the system so that we can intervene in each context and center a sector and obtain so that we obtain suitable or sustainable outcomes and impact. And you see the question on food handling and storage that is highlighted, and I've highlighted it because I will be sharing with you, focusing on how food processing was used as an entry point in our partnership with an UN agency. And we'll be describing on how it has contributed to understanding the horticultural value chain in Botswana and has helped us come up with recommendations on how to improve and build a resilient and sustainable value tree. So I'll be focusing on a bit, I'll be talking a bit on processing. Now just to give you an overview, Botswana's economy is mainly dependent on the mineral sector with minimal economic diversification and underperforming agricultural sector and all these results in dependence of food inputs that compromises food security and employment generation. However, through the development of our own value chains, including intensified value addition of produce, we can position the country Botswana to lower its expenditure on food inputs and increase agricultural productivity. Consequently, the creation of the much needed employment opportunities and eradication of poverty, increased farmers returns would be realized. From time immemorial, our farmers were growing mostly cereals and legumes, and thus limiting the diversity of locally grown available foods. In realizing the importance of good nutrition, the government is now actively promoting the development of every sector in agriculture, including horticulture. Now I want to take you through, just to give you an overview of how the horticultural sector is in Botswana. It is mostly dominated by small and profitable farmers who in most instances lack resources to invest in modern farming technologies. And because they don't have the resources, the lack of technology restricts the opportunity to expand both the range and the volume of their produce. The sector is also dominated by farmers who are part-time, they come and go at the farm, so this limits the farm, reduces the farm performance. Inputs are sourced from South Africa, and this is a challenge and this challenge was really felt during this COVID era because of border closures and movement, restriction movement. So getting stuff from South Africa has been very, very difficult. And there's also seasonality and large fluctuations of supplies, which leads to large variation in prices and wastage. Data from the Ministry of Agriculture indicates that 50% of the land allocated to horticulture remains unutilized, therefore reducing production potential. We also have significant fluctuation in production volumes and prices of fresh fruits and vegetables, due to accentuated seasons and extreme weather conditions. And of course there's limited cooperation between the farmers themselves to coordinate production or group for marketing or purchasing processes. So this just shows you the landscape of what transpires in our Bojana horticultural sector. Now notwithstanding that, I wanted at this point to highlight the fact that Bojana is currently working on collaborating with partners to collectively step up support to end hunger, achieve food security and improve nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. Some of these include the signing up with the Sun movement, which currently has five networks existing in the country, although they are not yet, they have not yet gained momentum. We've also had an opportunity to participate in the compact 2025 initiative through IFPRI, and we managed to conduct a nutrition scoping study which is still ongoing, results of which would be disseminated in June 2021. So having said that in my next slide now, I'll be describing on the specific joint venture targeting the horticultural value chain, as I said at the beginning of the presentation. In this slide I'm showing you in 2016, our institution, which is a food research institution responsible for developing food processing technologies, established an agro processing plant as a spin off company with the aim of saving the produce. And this, saving the produce from the farmers, which could not sell fresh at the market. And this company is currently producing vegetable pickles and tomato sauces. As you can see from those pictures, the brand name is harvest Haven, and we produce pickled beetroot pickled vegetable mixed vegetable pickle and tomato chili sauce and we also have plain sauce. Now the other objectives besides saving the produce from the farmers was to stimulate growth within the horticultural sector itself. And the plant was also established as a development project to be operated as a commercially sustainable business, and also a demonstration model of a sustainable agro processing enterprise to be replicated in Botswana as a spouse by stakeholders. The established plant and operations infrastructure also serve as an abler, an incentive for potential investment in the company to facilitate growth and expansion. So, three years down the line, after starting the company, we were approached by UNDP, and they were requesting for partnership. And they also wanted to participate in a program called Botswana business supplier development program. This program is aimed at creating demand based market driven opportunities for small and medium enterprises, in order to increase their competitiveness, while connecting them to larger markets locally as, as well as abroad. The program uses a three stage business methodology, which ensures that the supplier can supply the buyer with the goods to the standard required. What happens is that the UNDP and our institution signed an agreement and a partnership and in this agreement, UNDP was committing to engaging consultants to work with the different players in the value on the value chain. While our institution was committing to sourcing the resources that would be needed in addressing the issues identified through this partnership. So UNDP engaged consultants who were trained on this method, methodology and assigned to work with each player in the value chain to establish the issues on the ground so that we understand better what is happening within the value chain. And therefore, when you know what is wrong with something is only then that you can come up with interventions to mitigate the challenges that you are facing. Now, the set of consultants who were working with the farmers on the production side identified a few challenges that we're facing the farmers. First of all, the farmers were not motivated to diversify their produce due to lack of markets. If you don't have anywhere to sell, you are not motivated to produce. Some farmers were not grading their produce, whatever they produce, when they want to sell, they just lump everything together and try to take it to the market. As mentioned earlier, limitations of technology and not using best farming practices, therefore, really the production is not up to standard. The farmers produce on open fields because they don't have the infrastructure for climate control. And as we are all away, climate change is now affecting a lot of us to an extent that we farmers sometimes lose their produce because of frost or too much heat. There's lack of access to improve seed varieties and agrochemicals. And our farmers are not using efficient harvesting and preservation methods. Also storage is a challenge. And then ultimately all this leads to low production output and perishability of farm produce. In a nutshell, those were the key challenges that were identified by the consultants. And these are the challenges that the farmers are facing. Now when it comes to the plant itself, looking at the processing, the plant had limitations related to capacity on some of the installed equipment in relation to anticipated product offtake. Remember, we bought the equipment from India and therefore there were some challenges with the equipment that we bought. The plant is also not at a point where it can absorb all the produce from the farmers, which means it is failing to provide a one-stop shop for all the horticultural produce potentially available or potentially produced by our horticultural farmers. And with the current capacity limitations, the plant still does not provide farmers with optimal access to alternative and competitive markets that can cause them to expand their production. The plant was also experiencing challenges with product quality. The products were not stabilized. There were points where some product has to be recalled from the shop shelves because it was not performing very well. So those are the challenges the plant was experiencing. When it just got to the marketing component or the market player in the food value chain, horticultural value chain, when we set up the plant, we had a marketing plan, but unfortunately due to lack of resources, we could not implement this plan. Our products were facing difficulties in penetrating the market. We have limited product offering and this is affecting the income generated by the plant and therefore the plant is not sustaining itself. The products are facing a lot of competition from the established brands. Like I was saying, we get most of our foods from South Africa, so our people still believe the products from South Africa are better than the locally produced products. We were limited to only one promotion strategies and we were using merchandise in shops to promote the products and we could not use the existing channels of wholesale distribution because it was too expensive. 35% of the distribution cost on the sale price and that was going to put the price of our products very high and therefore not competitive in the market. The last player that we looked at was the consumers themselves of the products. In Botswana, there's lack of information about consumer behavior and without this information, we are limited in terms of understanding the consumer actions that drive them to buy in these certain products. We also have limited understanding of the expectations of the consumers and what makes the consumer buy the product. So in a nutshell, these were the challenges that were identified during this partnership working with these four different players in the horticultural chain. The project did not end there. We then went a step further to now come up with interventions. How do we now address the identified challenges which are facing the different players in the horticultural value chain. The sole aim of trying to make the value chain perform much better than it is right now. From the farmer side, training was identified as a key area where we should be focusing. And the training of farmers should be able to provide answers to what type of agriculture is feasible within the current climate change environment. What kind of effective technologies and corporate mix can the farmers engaged in in order to give them optimum economic returns. And what are the quality control issues that can hinge on the cooperation of both the growers and the buyers and ensure the quality of the project, the product. And I'm quite happy to say UNDP is working on that component that we do get our farmers trained so that they can improve their production capacity. On the plant side, this was now the responsibility of our institution because we had committed to raising funds to find any productivity improvements or enhancement within the plant itself. And we thought, first and foremost, we need to increase our product range, and we could only do that by an additional line processing line. And for starters, we're thinking of the dry soup line and canine line the canine line is quite versatile. In the future, we can be able to can quite a number of products so that we increase the income for you increase our product offering and therefore possibly increase the income generated by by the plant. We also have secured funds for setting up a quality control lab like I mentioned earlier, the product where we are experiencing issues of quality with the product. So because there was no on site lab, we're depending on an external lab to do our testing for us. So we have established a quality we are in the process of establishing a quality control lab, which is going to take control of stabilizing the product and make sure that it is of the quality that is higher. And so we are going to be making sure that we improve product availability, therefore the issues of distributing the products, warehousing, we are going to be looking into it, and also incorporating an internal quality assurance system in the management structures of the plant. The market, like I said, we are introducing another line that is basically to to make us penetrate into other segments of the other market segments, especially the institutional market institutions here I'm referring to institutions like schools, hospitals, prisons, etc, etc. If you can make products that can sell in those markets, it could help the income generation by the project. We also secured some funding for marketing activities, and we are currently working on developing promotional materials which can use to push the products from the shop shelves. Lastly, now the consumers, we are planning to do more product promotions and shops, and more consumer acceptance tests of the products that will be introduced. We are also riding on a national initiative for promoting locally produced goods, which is called hashtag pressure BW. If you have that in your own, your label, people are able to identify with that product, and maybe buy it better than they are doing right now so we are riding on that national initiative. In conclusion, we know that Bozana is now committed to improving the nutritional status of the population, but we need to strengthen the agriculture and nutrition linkages. In this partnership, we have realized that and understood the issues affecting the horticultural value chain, and we've also realized that when you harness the trends and abilities of others from different corners of your ecosystem, that is one of the most strategic ways for businesses to scale up their innovation, solve complex challenges, and learn very useful lessons for development of the future of the agro processing facility in this particular context. So in a nutshell, investing in agriculture and food systems through public and private investment towards agro processing can support goals of diversifying livelihoods and the economy at life. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was really very, very interesting and also the importance of adopting an integrated approach to food systems, the importance of going local on supporting local socio economic ecosystems, the importance of having value chains which are more sustainable, which try to reduce food losses, which are more integrated, and of course more nutrition sensitive. Now really it was very, very interesting. Thank you very, very much. I would like now to give the floor to Alfredo Echeveria, who will be sharing with us his experience from Costa Rica. Alfredo, the floor is yours. You have about 15 minutes. Thank you. Hello. Hello. Yes, just a moment please. Yes. Hi. Hi, everybody. Well, I'm very pleased to be here. Thank you very much for the opportunity to file to son to everybody that make this happens. Well, I am come from Costa Rica, the land of Pura vida which in English is pure life. And I represent the Costa Rica gastronomic foundation. We're 5.1 million habitants, the highest percentage of biodiversity per square meter which is awesome in the world. And that creates a great sustainability consciousness of our people, but we have challenges we have 1.8 mile nutrition and 25.7 obesity, but from challenges, we have opportunities. And today I'm here to talk about the national plan for sustainable and healthy gastronomy. And I have two topics. One is raising the bar on the general understanding of the definition of gastronomy. We're going to be talking about gastronomy. And let's make it clear. We want to upgrade up, you know, this, this term. Second point is working horizontally, meaning using gastronomy the term that we're going to define as a cross cutting axis towards cultural socio economic development. So let's go to topic number one, raising the bar on the general definition of of gastronomy. Usually gastronomy. We see it as too vertical. And this means that the definition usually is related to food and culture, but also to gourmet cuisine and we want to raise the bar and talk about a more deep definition. This is the Berkeley University of California definition. And let's put it this way. One dimension only is the perception that has been and let me let me just go through, for example, from the culinary field we see mostly related to the quality of the product the chefs are very much in care of obtaining the best product to prepare the best meal. That's understandable. The trade institutions exports and imports tourism organizations product enhancement. The entities intangible heritage value mean tradition restaurants private business and hence experience and profit planning institutions food security health departments held related issues, like for example the reduction of salt, and the agriculture And we can continue continue and the list is the list is big, but what if we put all this together in one definition. So, we have to go to basics and what is basic basic usually comes in from from history. Brianne Savaran French. He wrote the physiology of taste. He is the anthropologist of gastronomy is the first philosopher of gastronomy. He wrote gastronomy is the knowledge and understanding of all that relates to man as he eats its purpose is to ensure the conservation. Watch this word of man using the best best policy food possible. So, in those definitions sustainability nutrition food systems innovation with identity which are using the present time responsible production agro diversity value chain. All those words were not there at that time but in those two words conservation and best food. We might see the basic of it. And let's talk about an inspirational and enhanced ideal of definition of gastronomy, in which all stakeholders should be represented. For example, gastronomy is this sustainable and healthy food, good food, nutritious that people consume, both traditional and innovative with identity meaning the new the contemporary food. We recommend to be inspired in tradition. So it is innovative, but it comes from the values and tradition, but this food that nurtures and strengthens the quality and joy of living. We must have fun while thinking on on food, also cultural values and agro biodiversity. This means going to from responsible production to accessible consumption, impacting the food systems towards the resilience to climate change and thinking about the future, thus proactively contributing to the well being of future generations. So, so, so I leave you with this definition that we think embodied the whole spectrum, because we think that this cost has to go beyond pleasure on the plate. The whole food system should be in the world. The whole system should be in the plate when you see when we have food in front of us. We should be able to think about the complete full system that created that that we have in front of us is a more holistic viewers gastronomy, in which definitely, definitely sustainability and health nutrition should be the first talking point. And let's go to topic number two. And this is the national plan for sustainable and healthy gastronomy is a long, long title. But let me explain. We call it the national gastronomic round table. Why national, because everybody should be involved. Why gastronomy, because it's the common denominator food is life, food is common to everybody. Everybody can relate to food. Why round, because we want no head, no hierarchies, no politics, we want everybody to be there. Why table because table is where family gathers table is where where we nurture. So, when did we started this we started in 2011, and it was an initiative of civil society. And yes, government private sector and academia are represented. We are just one group. We have right now, 52 entities that we call adherents. And for 2021 we have a goal which is reached to 100. Yes, challenging, but doable. Who we really are. Our DNA is a multi stakeholders articulation model that envision gastronomy as a cross cutting axis toward the cultural and socio economic development in our country. And let's put it this way, this is a result of many, many, many people working for, for, for you see from 2011 is a multi sector or multi disciplinary consistent and passionate effort from many colleagues and founders we are six founders, but just many, many, many people from all spectrum of society working with this. Also, is an innovative approach by which food systems are benefit from. So, what keep us going strong because we're growing first of all passion and commitment visualization and visualization of stakeholders. This is key. And those concepts are different. Plets to principles which are sustainability and health, we have that as an umbrella. And every, every, every, every institution, every entity that sees on our table, we ask what is your contribution to the table meaning what is not you coming to look for what is your contribution, thinking about sustainability health and having gastronomy as the axis. So, we look for consistency in the implementation of these principles compliance and therefore accountability. Right now we are looking forward and we're working on that area in Costa Rica. And here we are 50 plus stakeholders. As a matter of fact, I am right now in the convention center, the place that you're looking in the screen. We are a working in a multi sectoral multi stakeholder alliance for the implementation of the plan, but then we're building bridges to expedite articulation. We want action we want facts we want to really make things happen. So we look, this is the following you're going to have here, a little bit of animation here. So, the stakeholders sit around the table and you see gastronomy in the middle, because it's the center of attention. Remember, we said, put gastronomy as the, as the axis, the, the what this unite everybody. Who is everybody? Well, the health department and related institutions, tourism, hospitality sector, we have the labor department, we have the gastronomic sector key, the chefs, the culinary professionals, the community, public and private academia and research, the cultural department, the local governments, the municipalities, OMGs, social society on just belongs to social society, but we wanted to point it out a little bit higher, and economy department and agricultural department, everybody, but you know what happens when we are seated together. Then we can start talking and sharing. And then what happened, it is magic. It's magic because then you recognize somebody in front of you that has maybe an objective and have a project and also frustrations because I mean life is life. And then we recognize our strengths and our possibilities. And then we start to talk and then triangulate. And this is magic. And this is happening right now. We are talking to everybody at the same level in that table. And then we said achievements. What, what, what have we achieved? Well, first of all, when this is a book, and it was published by Imbio, which is a leading cutting edge institution in Costa Rica that we love in, in biodiversity studies. This book is has 106 approximately edible plants from Central America, but we needed I mean the people from the from from from society, the people from operations, the people from the field, we needed a tangible platform scientific in this case. So this created the visualization of local native native plants as a nutritious ingredient and as a cultural heritage value. So if we use the native and local plants, and we built on that, then everything is a chain reaction. Okay, we were able to do that. Many actions that in 2015, leading to the declaration of by presidential decree of the initiative of national interest. This was thanks to CACORE, which is a restaurant chamber of Costa Rica. This opens doors to to talk to other institutions in the government that really, really absolutely help us. And also, we were able to promote sustainable and healthy gastronomic business models and helping the creation of new jobs, directly and on directly because this created a movement. And the inclusion of Costa Rica gastronomy in private and public hospitality and culinary educational programs. So we really affected the academic perspective before 2011. There were non public or private institutions that were really really in terms of culinary practice, putting the Costa Rican gastronomy as a main topic, we were talking about other other success stories like you know France and Italy and Spain, and many others So this this was a really real achievement. Also, we were, and this is happening right now. I mean, we have energized a nationwide movement, promoting regional tourism product differentiation based on local gastronomy. So different regions are really looking for looking to from from within, I mean, going local, and we took the term. Globalization, watch that this is different from globalization. And this is a term that I understand started in Japan in 1970. It means think global, but act local. And we are implementing that. So other success story is the evaluation of fit the genetic resources for food and agriculture in a mega diverse country. I mentioned at the beginning that we have the highest percentage of biodiversity per square meter in the world. Can you imagine this. So we have these these resources. And there are many, many institution Costa Rica that are doing extraordinary job but the thing is that we were not talking to each other. So what happened when you, again, you do this and then you suddenly you shorten the market commercialization chains. So you bring food producers closest to the gastronomic sector, you eliminate those shirts, those chains. And when producers and restaurants get together, you know, again, magic starts to happen. So, another achievement here is we have wider society awareness towards sustainable innovative and healthy gastronomy. I mean, we, I mentioned at the beginning that all the stakeholders from different levels of society and working together in this picture you see here from from the ICT board that we were closely very, very close. As a matter of fact, we have a meeting next week with the minister to to work together to see what are we going to do in the next two years together. So, the awareness that was sustainable, innovative and healthy gastronomy and healthy is a word that we want to really emphasize. And we done this through communities, farmers markets that are members of our initiative, meaning adherence. And we mentioned the tourism development program and food festivals in 2015. We started organizing festivals with those values included is not just remember to talk about gastronomy as an entertaining or as a hedonistic way of enjoying life is just looking to those values within the term, and also not only the term the actions, as I said food festivals, we did put festivals that suddenly I had the pleasure of organizing the first one, and we had 15,000 people in one day. And then we had another one with 25,000 people and another one with 50,000 people. So this is coming exponentially. Obviously, it stopped us now. Also, we started the gastronomic roots in the central market, and I have the pleasure even to to go with the Miss Gerta. That went two years ago was there that had the pleasure of going through these roots in the central market culinary labs again organized by the chamber of restaurants, we had until 150 restaurants up to more than 120,000 people reached with new dishes that include native plants and also a nutritional balance and all this concept within the recipes. Also, we have reached private and public schools can teams because remember, this is not only for restaurants. Again, gastronomy is a much more wider and bigger term. Okay, this is this is great. One of them, I would say I'm we're very proud of reaching this stage because we have joined recently or the the Latin America and Caribbean civil society network for the sun movement. Because working towards the eradication of malnutrition in Costa Rica. We have a obesity challenge. One of the fastest growing percentages in Latin America. And, and then again, putting this in the point of the spear is for us of critical critical in terms of where we're going and where we heading. And where, where, where do we come from. Well, talking about the sustainable development goals. With this initiative, we have clearly pointed the areas that we have impacted and let me sum up first poverty. Yes, you will have to resume very soon and you have to conclude very soon because the time is. Yes, well, we have just reached the sustainable development goals. And I'm finishing this is the last one, which I'll say that all together is the only way to achieve the goals and through sustainable and healthy gastronomy and thank you and poor Amida, the way we say the cost. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for underlying the importers of shortening the food value chains, using local products and also putting at the center, the health and nutritional status of individuals in the center of everything. Thank you very much. It was very, very interesting. I would like to now give the floor to Patricia to answer some of the questions she have received. Meanwhile, please to the others for the other speakers please have a look at the Q&A to see the questions that would address to you and later on you will have the opportunity to answer. So, Patricia, would you like to answer some of the questions? Yes, I would like to answer one question. I think a couple of questions were asking how they can get in touch with us. And I just want to build on what Alfredo said in relation to network. For example, the Sun Civil Society Network, because clearly for us it would be easier to work with networks and adjust the resources that we have to make them suitable and tailored to different audiences. So, I'm taking the example of the Sun Civil Society Network that works with a wider range of partner. In that case, they know better what are the needs and what is the format that they want to use. And by working with them, we would be in a better position to collaborate and to tailor the material. Because you will see that these e-learning courses were designed for individual capacity development. So they are really tailored for individual learning. And now to translate all this knowledge into something, a format that can be used with the civil society organization or with small and medium enterprise. You then need to tailor the material in a different format using much more videos or inspirational talk like the one that we had just now. So, I mean, in short, how to get in contact, it's easier for us to get in contact through existing network like the Sun. It's great to think about different formats together. And for individual learning, we really encourage you to go and take these e-learning courses because you can get a qualification, a batch from them, and you can really know what is the content to further adapt that content. So that was one of the questions that I received. Another question was on the organizational capacity that are needed to mainstreaming nutrition in large scale investment. And again, I mean, it's a very broad question, but it's a very interesting question. And there are two entry points. I mean, one is to understand what is the buy-in from the senior management because often changes in an organization can start if there is a buy-in at the level of the leadership or at least an endorsement. And then at the technical level, we look at two types of competencies. I mean, obviously if there is nutrition expertise, that's of value, but also we look at professionals that are working in nutrition-relevant areas. So it means people that are working on agriculture or culture, even gastronomy. I mean, really different areas that really can help to have that multidisciplinarity. But it's really at two levels, at the technical level, but also at the leadership level that you need to have these two entry points. So I just took these two questions to start with. Okay, thank you very much. Now maybe Stoki, did you have a chance to look at your questions? Would you like to provide some answers? Yes, thank you. I'll answer a few questions and some of them I will have to type in the answers. The first question that I got was on how we are promoting our pickled vegetable product. Normally the promotion strategy that we use is we talk to shops where we have our product to put them in specials. We call them month-end specials. So in that way, they become slightly cheaper than the normal price, but then if we push enough volumes, we normally get sufficient or quite reasonable funding from that. And we also do onsite tasting in the shops. The merchandisers that I said we are engaging sit in shops and they always put a table there with the product. So when customers come into the shops, they make them taste the product and normally after tasting, one would pick one or two bottles to take home. So that is how we've been promoting our pickled vegetable product. Another question was on nutrition objectives on what we did. If we remember very well, I said nutrition sensitive means having a variety of foods and variety obviously is a nutrition objective and also stimulating production. Remember, we said the food should be sufficient in terms of quantity and quality. So those are nutrition objectives which were embedded in the product. So food security in terms of the quantity of what the farmers are producing and then diversity because now they are normal just producing sorghum and beans. They can now produce carrots, cabbage, onion, beetroot, etc. So that gives us the variety that we need and also the quantity and of course contributing to food security in Botswana because supposing South Africa doesn't stop giving us food or it loses their borders so that we don't get from there, we will starve. But if you have our local production, then we can be able to feed our own people and it's a nutrition objective. There was also another question on the willingness of farmers to use modern technologies. Yes, as I said, there are consultants who are working with the farmers as I'm speaking and one of what we have been pushing for is we've been negotiating with the Ministry of Infrastructure Development to take the necessary infrastructure to the farms. Because we find that our farms will be in the bush, there will be no electricity, there will be no telephone, there will be no this, there will be no that. So we are working with the Ministry of Infrastructure, the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy so that they can take the services to the people where they need them so that our farms would have electricity to operate. And they will also have things like the telephone lines, they can get internet connection so that it makes it easier for the farmers to communicate with the market. And then there was another question on whether our farmers are using commercial varieties, they are growing commercial varieties. Like I mentioned in my presentation, the farmers are now UNDP is engaging the consultants to teach the farmers on the fact that they should always test their soils so that they know what is lacking, what nutrient is lacking. And also to know what type of vegetable would be suitable for their soils, they are also testing waters from either the river if they are irrigating from the river or if they are irrigating using the borehole to test the borehole water so that you know the status of the water and therefore can use appropriate seeds. And we are also working with the Department of Agricultural Research so that the farmers do get information on what is suitable for their farms. And then also the last one that I will respond to is on agro processing for small and medium enterprises, whether that is sustainable or that is, yeah, whether it was sustainable or something like that. Finish agro product development and marketing by small and medium enterprise may not be sustainable. Yes I agree it may not be sustainable if you look into the issue of equipment, equipment is normally expensive and like I said, our farms there would be no pieces like electricity so if you buy an electric run machine where will you get the electricity from to run it. But what we do is we have we have tested or mini processing plant so that a farmer can lease out the mini processing or we can make an agreement a deal so that they hire the use of this mini processing plant. They come in process their product and take it to the market. In the initial stages we were promoting the use of these mini plants just for market testing of the product before you get into any meaningful investment, but we are now saying, if you cannot afford to provide the necessary equipment and all that you can come to us. We sign a contract, you come in, you process your product, you take it to the market for selling and we can have the agreement for as long as the interpreter is interested to have or as long as you generate enough resources for you to now be able to purchase your own equipment. That is what I would say for now the rest of the answers I can provide at a later stage by typing them. Thank you. Yes, definitely. Thank you very much. There's a question that says the Costa Rica ranks in sixth in the 2020 global hunger interest report with a consistent good score over the past four rankings. The question is, which part of the food systems will you attribute to the improved outcomes and what what will you advise countries seeking to improve their score to implement as best practices. Let's start saying that this is not by chance Costa Rica have invested in social in the social dimension since so many, many, many years ago remember we do not have an army by in itself, and we have been able to invest in the social dimension as I said, we have a very strong health system. And I have to say that with very proudly that the health department, the education department and the social security which belongs to the health department have done an extraordinary job by recognizing hunger, and they have made the study of really the country and for example, as I understand, they have concluded that there are up to date around 6000 families that are on the level of high level of poverty, lower, and they're working with them. So in that way, the situation in Costa Rica is, as I said at the beginning is one point, I said I was 1.7 1.8 of malnutrition. But really, maybe we have to look for obesity, which is a pandemic which is growing I mean we have a situation here and, and how to teach people how to, how they can learn how to eat better. Again, going to the question, the social dimension of our society and the health department and the health system has been very strong. And again, there's another question here and that help us to really reach other areas, because it is says here, for example, if the streets food sector was also integrated with within these initiatives, well, we have started in 2011 with this plan. And yes, it's been tough in terms of communicating but we're, we're getting there what we've been doing is, is building this this platform on this, this integrated platform of stakeholders. And yes, we have worked for example, with the, with the, with the market, the different markets, and, and by communicating and by doing for example, the festivals. We're integrating the people and, and also the municipalities right now are getting into the initiative and, and, and we are working on, for example, the food sector, the street food sector. And then we see there's another question here. Well, what I will say that the key here is integrating and is informing and is involved in visualizing the stakeholders through through the national plan and through inviting people in seating and also have to say that the different organizations, like the chamber of restaurant chamber have by including the chambers also the professional within the initiative, then we are able to spread the news to communicate and to integrate all this. That's my answer. I have answer to questions. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much Alfredo I would like to thank all the speakers and before we resume I would like to, to mention that to the file learning courses that are offered through the file learning Academy as Patricia was, was mentioning the digital multilingual. First of all, they are free and offered as a global public good and they are certified through the digital badge, the certification system. So, this system certifies the acquisition of competences. They are very much the courses we produce are very much competency based and the digital badge system that we adopt for certification is based also on the acquisition of this. So, this was just to go back to what Patricia has said and to mention to maybe have a look at the list of courses which are related to this webinar. In conclusion, we are extremely lucky and very, very pleased to have with us also get that very from the who is the United Nations assistant secretary general and also the coordinator of the sun movement, the scaling up nutrition movement. I would like to take the opportunity also to thank very much the team of the sun woman with whom I am in contact and with who we work very, very successfully. So there that the floor is yours. Thank you very much for being with us. Thank you. Christiana, it is really an honor and pleasure to join you and all the 260 6566 participants and it has been even more participants so I would like to congratulate you. The file team and the scaling up nutrition movement team but also all the participants, because apparently these kinds of learning courses or food systems. But for health and nutrition important for saving our planet are of crucial importance right now. I'm just coming from another seminar and I would like to say something about it. I'm also very happy to see and recognize many members of the stakeholders of countries in the region from the scaling up nutrition movements civil society focal points, multi sectoral platforms, multi stakeholders, etc. This is the time to come together around our food systems. And I don't mean the global food system. I mean your own country food system, and maybe your regional food system. Why, because the COVID-19 has learned us hard lessons, not only how vulnerable we as people are, but also that our food system is not fit for purpose. It is failing already millions for years. And this crisis if it is even more clear that we need to do something about making sure that food is serving people is nourishing people, but it food is also not spoiling our planet further. And for that reason, this course learning is so crucial at this time, and you all participants have made the right choice. Now how to take it from there, from here, because I was also able to have a look at the Q&A. If you have any questions on how can file supporters. How do we do this, etc. There was also some criticism about why not having the, the circulation circular economy when it comes to food for instance through organic food, etc. It's all great, but my invitation to you as participants is don't criticize but take it as an opportunity. Your questions can be brought to the table in your own country. Food systems dialogues will happen or are happening soon in your countries, because there will be a food system summit hosted by the Secretary General of the UN, who is bringing together all stakeholders, but it wants to see concrete commitments and actions from countries. And to prepare this every country, including your country is invited to organize food systems dialogues, three in a row, one to make sure that you have the right stakeholders around the table, including societies, communities, civil society, private sector, UN investors, and what have you, and make and look at your food system and put on the table a concrete proposal on how to improve this, including acro ecology, including food loss and waste, including connection markets, including fair income for farmers, including the smart choices for consumers and accessibility and affordability of food. It can all be brought to the table, but it is in our hands, it is in your hands to take it from a country perspective. And of course you can ask Fao what Fao is doing. Fao is there for you, just as the scaling of nutrition movement is there for you, because one thing is clear. It is impossible to drop global solutions on every country and solve everything from a global perspective and funding alone will not do the trick. This is about people and by people making sure that all stakeholders are recognized and that solutions that are brought to the table to make our food system, both serving our health and nutrition and mitigating climate change, safeguarding our biodiversity or improving soils or natural resources, mitigating big problems and potential conflicts because of climate change. And we can do it now. And for that reason, I would like to invite all more than 262 participants right now to have a look at your country in your country or to reach out to the scaling of nutrition movement or Fao to get more information on how you can get connected to this food systems dialogue at your country so that you with all your wisdom, your ambition, your expertise can contribute to solutions that will serve our generation, next generation, but also keep our planet livable for the next next next generations. And with this, I would like to thank all involved and wish you a very good day. Thank you for participating, but take this forward. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I think that these are excellent concluding remarks. I would like to ask you all to please stay tuned. We will be organizing many other webinars and in particular we are organizing just as a follow up to what Gerda has just mentioned we are organizing a 24 hour global marathon for sustainability. And we actually done on the 22nd of April, which is the United Nations International Mother Earth Day, and we have been mobilizing people from civil society, governments, but also citizens, young entrepreneurs to try to share for us with us their concerns and their good practices, their ideas related to sustainability. So this is very much linked to what you were mentioning Gerda and this is going to be organized in the 24 time zones throughout the world. We are we are now gathering all the experts and all the participants who will be basically providing some support for ideas related to sustainability. So thank you all very much for your time your availability and we really look forward to see you in our next webinar. Thank you very much. Bye bye. Bye bye everyone. Thank you very much everyone. Thank you.