UN Food Systems Summit 2021 Ukraine held second National Dialogue

The Food Systems Summit Dialogues are convened by Member States through the organization of "national dialogues" aiming to strengthening the dialogue among diverse stakeholders on key challenges and innovative solutions to make our food systems more sustainable. In Ukraine, the national discussions should result in National Report with a clear roadmap and an action plan for sustainable food systems until 2030. The results will be presented by the President of Ukraine at the UN Food Systems Summit which will take place in September 2021.

The first National Dialogue in Ukraine was focused on the issues of transformation and development of country’s Food Systems, the role of the Ukrainian agricultural sector in supporting global food security, and approaches of government and business to the UN Sustainable Development Goals were discussed. During the event three key areas of action were identified during, including healthy nutrition, environmentally friendly production, resilience to market instability and food availability.

The second National Dialogue on Ukraine's potential for the development of food systems was held on 14 July under the auspices of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine and the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine with the support of United Nations in Ukraine, particularly Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with the participation of representatives of science, public and business associations. The main aim of the event was to to draw public attention to the urgency of the transformation of food systems at the global level (a separate item of the G7 Summit), outline the country's potential and challenges for the development of food systems in Ukraine in the context of global trends, and continue a series of discussions in the framework of the national dialogue on the transformation of food systems in preparation for the UN Summit on Food Systems 2021.

Roman Leshchenko, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, said in his opening remarks that the issue of foreign trade expansion is currently important given the changes in economic conditions, primarily through the development of innovative technologies in agriculture, while meeting domestic demand. “The Government's position is as follows: Ukraine should increase production, but at the same time provide the population with the access to quality products”, he added.

"Exports of all types of products show quite strong results. But on the other hand, there is a connection with the internal instability of the system, which affects Ukraine's perception of the world. National Dialogues on food systems allow us to see the global picture and understand that we don’t have unique problems, and sometimes even the opposite. The task of the Dialogues is to try to transform domestic policy to show that Ukraine has something to add to global systems and promote Ukraine as an active participant in international trade,", said Taras Kachka, Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine, Trade Representative of Ukraine.

The participants also discussed Ukraine's development zones on the way to a proactive position on the world market, and also identified the next steps on the way to the ambitious goal of becoming a market-forming country.

"The direction of healthy nutrition and leisure is a future trend for the development of humankind. Our ambitious goal at the international level is to support Ukraine to grow a role from an active participant to a market-forming country, ” commented Taras Vysotsky, Deputy Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine.

This is only the first part of a series of National Dialogues, which will be continued on other vectors of food systems transformation.