World Food Day: Celebrating efforts to strengthen local food systems for displaced and host communities

Internally displaced and local women grow vegetables and food together on community land in Rutshuru Territory, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s North Kivu province. © UNHCR/Blaise Sanyila

Geneva – The 16^th of October is World Food Day. This year, the World Food Day commemorations will be jointly led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the World Food Programme (WFP).

As part of the commemorations, the three agencies will host a panel discussion on Friday, 15 October 2021, titled ”Celebrating efforts to strengthen local food systems for displaced and host communities.”

The event, which will be held virtually, will spotlight how inclusion of forcibly displaced people into local food systems can contribute to greater food security and socio-economic prosperity for them and the host communities. It will bring together frontline stakeholders and governments. Speakers include:

• H.E. Felix Bauman, Head of Multilateral Division, Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the UN
• Representative from the US Mission in Geneva (TBD)
• Mr. Sajjad Malik, UNHCR Director, Division of Resilience and Solutions
• Mr. Peter Musoko, WFP Country Director in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
• Ms. Irene Omondi, UNHCR Head of Sub-Regional Office in Mozambique
• Ms. Felicita Aniboti, refugee from DRC living in South Sudan
• Mr. Antonio Querido, FAO Representative in Uganda

To participate in the event, members of the media can register here.

To mark the event, the agencies are supporting the distribution of 300 lunch boxes to vulnerable people, including refugees. The lunch boxes are prepared by CuisineLab, a social enterprise run by refugee chefs in Geneva, and distributed throughout Geneva by Mater Fondazione.

World Food Day is commemorated each year on 16 October to mark the founding of FAO in 1945. Events are organized in some 150 countries across the world with multiple partners and governments.

For more information please contact:

• Tomson Phiri, WFP/ Geneva, Mob. +41 79 842 8057, Tomson.Phiri@wfp.org
• Aikaterini Kitidi, UNHCR/Geneva, +41 79 580 8334, kitidi@unhcr.org
• Adriano Timossi, FAO/Geneva , +41 774309873, adriano.timossi@fao.org

Originally published by UNHCR on 13 October 2021.