Prime Minister addresses One Health during the UN Food Systems Summit

The UN Food Systems Summit took place yesterday Thursday, 23 September 2021. The UN Food Systems Summit serves as a historic opportunity to empower all people to leverage the power of food systems to drive our recovery from the covid-19 pandemic and get us back on track to achieve all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Yesterday’s top political summit follows more than 18 months of different initiatives, including a large pre-summit with a broad scientific program, which counted also with the participation of the Norwegian Veterinary Institute.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg represented Norway at yesterday’s summit and gave a short speech, where she highlighted: “We are still in a pandemic. One Health - the connection between human, plant and animal health must be at the top of the global agenda.”

“We are very pleased to see that our Prime Minister took the opportunity to raise awareness for One Health as an important topic at the UN Food Systems Summit. We strongly believe that a broad One Health approach is key to achieve robust and sustainable food systems by 2030, that also ensure human, animal and environmental health”, said Carlos Das Neves, Director for Research and Internationalization at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute.

Prime Minister Solberg also addressed topics such as cutting food waste, act on climate change and place aquatic food systems firmly in the center of future solutions.

The Norwegian Veterinary Institutes (NVI) works for One Health

“NVI has a broad portfolio of research projects connected to One Health topics, including participating on Europe´s biggest One Health project, The One Health European Joint Programme focused on food safety, AMR and emerging threats”, said Das Neves.

The institute is currently engaged on research around Sars-Cov2 with others partners across Europe to ensure we are all better prepared for future pandemics. Prevention and preparedness are indeed key to how NVI delivers on its social mission.

NVI is also strongly engaged on aquatic food systems. Fish health and welfare are central premises to a sustainable use of the ocean resources and a successful blue economy. Know-how acquired in fish health in Norway over its more than 60 years of aquaculture can now be shared with partners in countries starting their aquaculture activities, and in this way contribute to more sustainable harvesting of ocean resources.

“The Prime Minister also addressed the need for “fighting food insecurity”, and NVI works together with partners in Low- and middle-income countries to establish new and sustainable food systems by promoting better animal health and welfare, which directly translates in increase food safety and production. Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya and Tanzania are examples of countries where NVI and its partners are already engaged in projects that put One Health at their core”, says Das Neves.

Food Systems Summit - Speech by Prime Minister Erna Solberg (Regjeringen.no)

 

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