3GF Africa Regional Conference 2015 Partnership Market Place SAVE FOOD When: Where: Speaker(s): Wednesday, 13 May, 17:00-18:30 Tent in the fountain area Emilie Wieben, Natural Resources Specialist, FAO, [email protected] What is the green growth challenge you are trying to overcome? What are the key barriers to change? FAO estimates that approximately 1/3 of all food that is produced is lost or wasted globally. This has serious implications on food insecurity, climate change, natural resources scarcity and poverty. As part of the transition towards low carbon development, there is a need to make food systems more sustainable and addressing food loss and waste (FLW) is essential to this. However, there are several underlying structural issues such as inadequate energy access and technology, insufficient infrastructure, unfavorable investment climate and consumer behavior. What is your partnership approach / hypothesis? The Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction (SAVE FOOD) is a global partnership of public and private sector organizations that are engaged in reducing FLW. To develop, implement and manage interventions, it is essential that all initiatives are well-coordinated, so that everyone knows what is happening worldwide, information, problems and solutions are shared, and methodologies, strategies and approaches are harmonized. Who are the partners involved and how? Partners include all actors involved in the food supply chain – private sector, research institutions, civil society, etc. The SAVE FOOD network counts more than 350 Partners globally, and is calling on new partners from the private sector as well as non-profit organizations involved throughout the food supply chain to join the effort and contribute their expertise. Strategically, the partnership is taking on a regional approach in addressing FLW because issues and solutions are generally region-specific, while projects tend to be implemented on a national level. What are your partnership objectives and what achievements have there been to date? The magnitude and complexity of the problem of food losses and waste requires collaboration of actors and organizations involved, as no organization acting alone can achieve meaningful results. Coordination and collaboration among the many initiatives being implemented would create synergy, increase the efficiency in using resources and expedite achieving results. The SAVE FOOD Initiative plays a coordinating role by bringing together all organizations and companies, public and private that are involved in food loss and waste reduction activities, either at global, regional or national level. It brings together partners that reach out to stakeholders and the general public, share information, ideas, questions and answers, support the implementation of solutions, and connect with each other to achieve significant results. What is the potential of this partnership to achieve impact and scale? Achieving signification reduction in food loss and waste at a global scale requires coordination between all the actors involved and the different initiatives taking place globally, regionally, nationally and sub nationally, and FAO is leading the coordination under the SAFE FOOD Initiative. The public sector is obviously needed in areas of research, advocacy, awareness raising and through civil society, for instance. However, in terms of making significant reductions in the amount of food that is either lost or wasted, finance and investment in sustainable food supply chains is needed and only private sector can do this.