Water and Nutrition. Harmonizing Actions between the Water and Nutrition Decade. What does it take?

  • Date
    22.03.23
  • Time
    11:00 am > 12:15 pm UTC-04:00

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UN 2023 Water Conference

Wednesday 22 March | 11:00 AM–12:15 PM | Side Event Room A

In 2019, the United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition, which has now evolved into UN-Nutrition, organized an event in New York to discuss how nutrition was linked to various Sustainable Development Goals that were being reviewed that year. This included a meeting on linkages between nutrition and SDG 6 on water and sanitation. Out of the meeting, a working group was formed that put together a discussion paper on Water and Nutrition. Harmonizing Actions for the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition and the United Nations Water Action Decade.

This session will review progress on the harmonization between the Decade of Action on Nutrition and the United Nations Water Action Decade since 2019, and will identify priority actions to strengthen outcomes from progress in the Water Decade for nutrition and from progress in the Nutrition Decade for SDG 6. The session will focus on Africa and will be linked to the African Union Year on Nutrition. Areas of attention include progress on three recommendations from the paper: 1) Implement nutrition sensitive water management; 2) Ensure the environmental sustainability of diets; and 3) Address social inequities in water–nutrition linkages.

The session will also draw on the Committee on World Food Security report on Water for Food Security and Nutrition, the first comprehensive effort to bring water, food and nutrition security issues together and bring together key authors from that effort to review efforts made to date and additional interventions needed.

Lead organization

International Food Policy Research Institute

Organizing partners

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU); UN-Nutrition Secretariat; African Union Commission; Northwestern University, USA; WASAG; Government of Ethiopia; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; Institute for Development Studies; Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy; CGIAR Initiative on NEXUS Gains.

Agenda

11.00–11.05 Claudia Ringler: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and NEXUS Gains co-lead: Introduction to the session
11.06–11.12 Virginie Gillet, Land and Water Officer, Land and Water Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO): Overview of UN’s activities on Harmonizing Actions between the Water and Nutrition Decade
11.13–11.19 Inga Jacobs-Mata, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), South Africa: The Pretoria Declaration on Water Use in Agriculture – Linkages to nutrition
11.20–11.26 Lyla Mehta, Institute of Development Studies, UK and Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and coordinating lead author of the CFS HLPE report on “Water for Food Security and Nutrition”: Implications of the CFS report for the mid-term review of the Water Action Decade
11.27–11.50 Roundtable discussion:
 
  • H.E. Seleshi Bekele (Ambassador of Ethiopia to the USA) and former Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy of Ethiopia and former Director, IWMI Ethiopia: Examples on joint water and nutrition interventions in Ethiopia
  • Sera Young, Northwestern University and co-author of the UN Nutrition report on harmonizing the water and nutrition decades: Using the HWISE scales as a tool to jointly advance water security and nutrition
  • Matthew McCartney, IWMI, NEXUS Gains lead and co-author of the UN Nutrition report on harmonizing the water and nutrition decades: How can better freshwater fisheries management support both the water and nutrition decades?
  • Shakuntala Thilsted, CGIAR Systems Office and Nutrition Impact Platform Coordinator: The essential role of water for drinking and preparing diverse, nutritious foods
  • Shiney Varghese, Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, co-author of the CFS HLPE report on “Water for Food Security and Nutrition” and member of the Fourth Steering Committee of the UN High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (2017-2019): Agroecological transition as an entry point for Harmonizing Actions between the Water and Nutrition Decade: Reflections from LDC5
11.50–12.12 Audience interactions
12.12–12.15 Closing

 

Header image: Farmers using a drip irrigation system in Kathmandu, Nepal. Photo by Sharad Maharjan/IWMI.

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