United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged countries to build food systems and provide more inclusive access to healthy and nutritious food as food supply has been severely affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic. He urged nations to mobilize to save lives and livelihoods by designating food and nutrition services as “essential” and implementing appropriate protection for food workers. “It means preserving critical humanitarian food, livelihood and nutrition assistance to vulnerable groups, and it means positioning food in food-crisis countries to reinforce and scale up social protection systems.” he said. Guterres also urged governments to strengthen social protection systems for nutrition by adapting social protection schemes to benefit nutritionally at-risk groups. “And let us rebalance the relationship between food systems and the natural environment by transforming them to work better with nature and for the climate.” Guterres said.

Source: Manila Times June 09, 2020 16:40 UTC