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Regional Webinar on Action Framework for Public Food Procurement and Service Policies for a Healthy Diet [1]

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Date: 2022-11-03

Organizers

African Union Commission, World Food Programme and World Health Organization

Date

3 November 2022

Time

12:00 pm Brazzaville ║14:00 pm Nairobi║13:00 pm Johannesburg║12:00 pm Geneva & Rome ║11:00 am Accra & Dakar

Languages



English, French and Portuguese

Background

Healthy public food procurement and service policies set nutrition criteria for food served and sold in public settings. These policies increase the availability of foods that promote healthy diets and/or limit or prohibit the availability of foods that contribute to unhealthy diets. Policies can cover the entire process of purchase, provision, distribution, preparation, service, and sale of food to ensure each step meets healthy criteria.

The WHO Action framework for developing and implementing public food procurement and service policies aims to increase the availability of healthy food through setting nutrition criteria for food served and sold in public settings. The action framework also aims to reduce preventable diseases and deaths from high consumption of sodium, free sugars and unhealthy fats, particularly trans fats, and inadequate consumption of whole grains, legumes, vegetables and fruit.

Consuming a healthy diet from pre-birth to the last days of life is vital to prevent all forms of malnutrition as well as diabetes, cancers and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). The new action framework serves as a tool for governments to develop, implement, monitor and evaluate public food procurement and service policies that align with the core principles of healthy diets, as outlined in existing WHO recommendations:

limit sodium consumption and ensure that salt is iodized;

limit the intake of free sugars;

shift fat consumption from saturated fats to unsaturated fats;

eliminate industrially-produced trans fats;

increase consumption of whole grains, vegetables, fruit, nuts and pulses; and

ensure the availability of free, safe drinking water.

Purpose of the webinar

The purpose of this webinar is to provide an African regional overview of how to strengthen, implement, assess compliance with, and evaluate, the effectiveness of a healthy public food procurement and service policies to ensure access to safe and healthy diets in the institutions. This webinar is part of the African Union Year of Nutrition: Strengthening Resilience in Nutrition and Food Security on the African Continent: Strengthening Agro-Food Systems, Health and Social Protection Systems for the Acceleration of Human, Social and Economic Capital Development.

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[1] Url: https://www.who.int/news-room/events/detail/2022/11/03/default-calendar/regional-webinar-on-action-framework-for-public-food-procurement-and-service-policies-for-a-healthy-diet

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