This Friedman Seminar features Francesco Branca, presenting "Nutrition for sustainable development"
Abstract:
On 25 September 2015 the UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This Agenda is a plan of action for people, planet and prosperity, with 17 Goals and 169 targets. Good nutrition is a core element of the
Sustainable Development Goals. The world is affected by multiple forms of malnutrition and their coexistence is the “new normal”. The approval of the 2030 development agenda is calling for a radical new approach to development work, with greater integration across sectors and development domains and with involvement of all countries. Nutrition is no exception and the nutrition agenda for 2030 can be read as “End all forms of malnutrition, address the nutritional needs throughout the lifecourse, give universal access to safe and healthy food sustainably produced and achieve universal coverage of effective nutrition actions”. In efforts to alleviate the massive global burden of suffering and unfulfilled potential resulting from malnutrition in all its forms, countries have made a series of recent commitments to improving nutrition and are discussing to declare a decade of action on nutrition.
Bio:
Francesco Branca is the Director of the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development in the World Health Organization, Geneva. During his tenure, WHO has established a new nutrition guideline development process and has developed a Comprehensive Implementation Plan on Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition with six global targets. He has been leading the preparation of the 2nd International Conference on Nutrition.
He has been a Senior Scientist at the Italian Food and Nutrition research Institute where he was leading studies on the effects of food and nutrients on human health at the different stages of the life cycle and on the impact of public health nutrition programmes. He has been President of the Federation of the European Nutrition Societies in 2003-2007.
Dr. Branca graduated in Medicine and Surgery and specialized in Diabetology and Metabolic Diseases at the Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Roma and obtained a PhD in Nutrition at Aberdeen University.