GLOBAL – The UN Food Systems Summit has announced a competition to identify the best small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from across the world who are transforming food systems for a better tomorrow.
Named “Best Small Business: Good Food for All”, the competition will be seeking to identify 50 SMEs worldwide leading the charge for more sustainable, inclusive and resilient food systems.
Additionally, through the Competition, the Summit will also be able to identify ways in which they can be supported to scale up their trades sustainably.
According to a statement from the UN, the competition will particularly focus on SMEs “whose work best exemplifies the Summit’s aim of delivering all 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by providing healthy, sustainable food and livelihoods for all.”
The competition will recognises those playing a key role in “building back better” from the pandemic while calling attention to the challenges they have been battling to overcome.
SMEs playing their part to transform through innovation the way small businesses produce, consume and dispose of food, offering lessons for building greater economic resilience and sustainability will also be recognized.
Enterprises around the world that help provide healthy food to their communities and create jobs for local people are therefore invited to apply and share ideas and suggestions for how their countries and economies can maximize their positive impact.
According to the UN, each submission will help inform global leaders with the priorities and resources these businesses need to thrive while the applicants will be invited to future Food Systems Summit event.
“All around the world, leaders need to pay attention to the ‘hidden’ contribution of the smaller businesses that are nourishing communities, creating jobs and regenerating nature,” said Dr. Agnes Kalibata, Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the 2021 Food Systems Summit.
“These everyday businesses and their employees are the vanguard of efforts to strengthen our food systems and the small business competition aims to celebrate these efforts and to showcase their inspirational stories.”
The UN Food Systems Summit was announced by the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, on World Food Day last October as a part of the Decade of Action for delivery on the SDGs by 2030.
The aim of the Summit is to deliver progress on all 17 of the SDGs through a food systems approach, leveraging the interconnectedness of food systems to global challenges such as hunger, climate change, poverty and inequality.
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