Environment Week in Review

Hello everyone and welcome to this Environment-themed Week in Review. Highlights include World Environment Day and UNEP’s report, Reducing Food Loss and Waste, that was released during the Event, the 2013 State of Food and Agricuture by the FAO, UN’s report on Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk and Wikichild’s upcoming online discussion on how to measure child well-being (from June 19th to July 2^nd).

• World Environment Day was celebrated on June 5th throughout the world. The theme for this year’s WED celebrations is Think.Eat.Save, an anti-food waste and food loss campaign that encourages you to reduce your footprint. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), every year 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted. This is equivalent to the same amount produced in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, 1 in every 7 people in the world go to bed hungry and more than 20,000 children under the age of 5 die daily from hunger.

• UNEP’s working paper, Reducing Food Loss and Waste, was released during the event and echoes the same dire reports that the FAO. It states that more than half of the food lost and wasted in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia occurs close to the fork-at the consumption stage. By contrast, in developing countries, about two-thirds of the food lost and wasted occurs close to the farm-after harvest and storage.

• FAO released its flagship report, The State of Food and Agriculture 2013: Food Systems for Better Nutrition, which addresses the need to improve food systems in order to address malnutrition in the world. The report calls for policymakers to address malnutrition through changes in food systems, public health and education, as well as improvements in supply chains and agricultural productivity. It also provides an overview of the linkages between agriculture, quality food, health and the economy, emphasizing that agriculture and the entire food system can contribute much more to the eradication of malnutrition.

• The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) is a biennial global assessment of disaster risk reduction and comprehensive review and analysis of the natural hazards that are affecting humanity. The economic and social costs of these disasters were highlighted in the final report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons for the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

• This month (from June 19th to July 2nd), Wikichild will be hosting an online discussion on how child well-being should be measured in view of future development frameworks, in partnership with HBSC and the World Health Organization. We look forward to reading your comment on this interesting and primordial theme. Join the conversation on Twitter by following #childwellbeing for updates.

We hope to see you next week for more environment-related articles. Stay tuned this month for the Global Wind Day and World Ocean’s Day.

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Ousmane Aly DIALLO

Wikiprogress Africa Coordinator