High-Level Roundtable

HIGH-LEVEL ROUNDTABLE

“On Positioning Ethiopia’s Food Systems to deliver sustainable, affordable and healthy diets for all - setting the scene for the UN Food Systems Summit.”

February 9, 2021@Radisson Blu Hotel, Addis Ababa

Background. The United Nations Secretary-General will convene the Food Systems Summit (FSS), in September 2021. The venue will be the UN Headquarters in New York, in conjunction with the next UN General Assembly. The summit will be a one-off event that sees transformed food systems to advance the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 agenda, around 5 Action-Tracks or themes. (i) Ensure Safe and Nutritious Food for All (ii) Shift to Sustainable Consumption Patterns (iii) Boost Nature Positive Production (iv) Advance Equitable Livelihoods(v) Build Resilience to Vulnerabilities, Shocks, and Stresses. Ethiopia is preparing for the UN Food System summit, to instigate heather diet for all.

The RoundTable In Ethiopia’s preparations for the Food Systems Summit, the Minister of Agriculture, H.E. Oumer Hussein, as Chair, and the Minister of Health, H.E. Dr Lia Tadesse, as Co-chair, called for a high-level meeting to reflect on how to transform Ethiopia’s food systems to deliver sustainable and healthy diets for all in the country. The meeting was moderated by the State Minister of Agriculture, H.E. Mandefro Negussie, and attended by representatives of Government and development partners. The meeting was virtually enriched with key notes, presentations and recommendations by Sir John Beddington – Chair of the Global Panel on Agriculture & Food Systems for Nutrition, DR. David Nabarro – Special Envoy of WHO & Strategic Director of 4SD, Prof. Patrick Webb – Technical Advisor to the Global Panel, DR. Alexander McFarlane – Professor of Nutrition, H.E. Gerda Verburg – UN Assistant Secretary-General/Coordinator SUN Movement, Dr. Lawrence Haddad – Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Dr. Sisay Sinamo – Senior Program Manager Seqota Declaration Program and Dr. Ferew Lemma – Senior Advisor Federal Ministry of Health.

The outcome of the meeting will be used to further develop the Ethiopia Food Systems position paper and roadmap towards the Food Systems Summit.

The roundtable discussion was launched, following the three presentations:

Presentations: 1. Transforming Food Systems in Ethiopia: With Insights from the Future of Food Systems report. Presented by Professor Patric Webb

The Global lesson shows key policy actions and gamechangers that Ethiopia can adapt and benefit from.

As diets are rapidly shifting towards negative way, foods are generating environmental Impact and damage to human health. Healthy diet for all must be a priority global policy agenda, and feasible set of actions- investment can be initiated today as first steps in a transition to a very different future. According to the Food Systems Dashboard, the cost of a diet of minimum nutrient adequacy can be >200% of a household’s food spending (e.g. Niger and DRC). Relative consumer price index of nutrient-rich foods is rising. Thus, Policy recommendations to transform the food system include:

Ensure foods to move along Make sufficient and nutrient rich value chains more efficiently and staple foods available to all ensuring accessibility, and and produced sustainably. resulting in lower cost, and less loss.

Empower consumers to make more Ensure Sustainable healthy diets informed food choice, fueling rising are affordable to all, with lower demand, for sustainable healthy demand for ultra-processed diets. products.

Possible Game changer solutions are sighted as subsidies for R&D and market-based (retail and consumer- focused incentives), realigning food-based dietary guidelines with science and policy instruments and repurposing social protections that focus on nourishing-not just reducing hunger or poverty. In addition, Fiscal policies including taxes in discouraging unhealthy diets, targeted subsidies for fruits and vegetables to address affordability and shift consumption patterns, leveraging public procurement for healthy diets. Finally Transition steps are recommended to resolve policy distortions and incoherence and to Leverage on existing and/or planned interventions and in supporting novel inter-governmental and global initiatives. Full report https://www.glopan.org/foresight2/

GLOPAN - 1Ethiopia HLRT slides (FINAL as presented).pdf 2. Background paper on Transforming Ethiopian Food Systems: Better diet quality, prosperity, and sustainability in a changing climate. presented by Dr Frew Lema “While much progress has been made on increasing staple cereal production, productivity levels are still very low, and diversification to provide more nutrients dense foods like fruits and vegetables has been very limited. Ethiopia Demographic and Health Surveys show that some progress has been made to reduce undernutrition. However, Ethiopia’s burden of undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies are still among the highest in Sub Saharan Africa. In addition, Ethiopia faces increasing overweight, obesity and diet related non-communicable diseases (diabetes and cardiovascular diseases) as emerging challenges, particularly among the urban population. Poor diets, with low diet diversity and inadequate consumption of animal source foods, fruits and vegetables are in part to blame for this situation of multiple forms of malnutrition. In contrast, salt consumption is above the WHO threshold of 5 g/day in every region of Ethiopia and the national average salt intake is 8.2 g/day (Challa et al., 2017). The low diversity of the diet, food safety concerns, and the unhealthy trends of salt and sugar intake, could explain the increasing trend in non-communicable diseases, on top of the already high prevalence of communicable diseases, that are stretching the health system. Ethiopia’s Food Systems also face considerable challenges to assure the safety of food products. Unaffordability of nutrient-dense foods is a barrier to improving diet quality and is likely to continue favouring a predominantly starchy diet, but also could encourage increased consumption of sugar and oils, moving Ethiopia further away from the needed healthy diet. “

Suggested game changing solutions include increasing farm productivity and production diversity, promoting adoption of sustainable regenerative farming practices, reducing food losses & limiting GHG emissions, Partnership for positive food environment from production to consumption, Linking and integrate agriculture to the market system, industry, health, and education, promoting social protection programs.

3. The Seqota Declaration An innovative Government of Ethiopia commitment to end stunting by 2030. Presented By Dr Sisay Sinamo

The Seqota Declaration is an innovative government of Ethiopia commitment to end stunting, in addressing the food system gaps through multi-sectoral approach. It is to reduce the number of children suffering from malnutrition and to save additional 7,852,216 children over the 15 years’ time.

According to the baseline survey, 100% of the households are facing postharvest loss, and 69% lack adequate food access all the year round, and only 38% have access to clean and safe water and sever stunning prevalence in SD areas.

Key lessons are drawn from the successful Sequta declaration initiative are tailored solutions to the local problems to ensure ownership and sustainability, long term commitment from the high level political leadership, multi-sectoral integration, and strong support from development partners.

EFS Background paper presentation - FINAL NC 2 plus SD.pdf Finally, the meeting was concluded with the Question and Answers session. Global panelists and Ministers forwarded directions and suggested game changing solutions.

Question no 1. What will be the key actions or game changers that could help to transform the Ethiopian food systems? Possible Game Changers for Actionable, Scalable and Sustainable Food System. ▪ Combine the agenda with N4G and let the public and the private make a pitch, bringing different players together and make changes. ▪ Massive stimulus for private sector engagement through creating enabling business environment, trade policies based on best practices, science, innovation, incentives including tax holidays for more fresh foods. ▪ Support public procurement for promoting healthy diet, as a way understanding of access to healthy foods. ▪ Support and Introduce Bio fortification to add nutrients to staple foods, and Introduce Cold chains solutions for vaccine, and all sorts of fortifications. ▪ Attract Small and medium enterprises through innovative financing to produce diverse nutritious foods. ▪ Support R&D, and nurture Larger businesses in Eth to make informed decisions on investment, Industrial Parks to produce more nutritious foods. ▪ Policy reviews, to ensure actions are coherent, not only nutrition and diet, but also water management, education, and other policy agenda. Example, the successful initiative- the Sequta Declaration. ▪ Support nutritious foods supply at workplaces, industrial parks, canteens. ▪ Reinforce social protection including school feeding programs. ▪ Influencing African union to get FTA implementation.

Question no 2 Recommendations and specific steps to be taken in the development of the Ethiopia Position Paper?

Recommended way forward actions: ➢ Similar dialogues to be conducted in the coming couple of months engaging private sector players. ➢ The current task team will synthesize and share the proposed Game changers to the panel. ➢ H.E Dr Lia will establish a multi sectoral actors’ task team to develop a National document. 5

➢ The task team will Identify partners/multi stakeholders to develop a medium and long-term action plan with multisectoral dimension, and actors including financers. ➢ The national document will be presented to the panel to further develop various program documents. All panelists and participants committed to continue supporting the Food System initiatives in Ethiopia.