Third World Conference on the Revitalization of the Mediterranean diet: A change of route towards more sustainable and resilient food systems in Mediterranean countries

The objectives of the 3rd World Conference on the Revitalization of the Mediterranean diet are:

To enhance a change of route in the Mediterranean for a shift towards more sustainable and resilient food systems for accelerating the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the country level;
To enhance the SFS-MED Platform, with its Coordination Desk hosted at the CIHEAM-Bari, by strengthening multi-stakeholder partnerships across the entire region;
To catalyse more collaborative multi-stakeholder “green”, “blue” and “ circular” SFS-related actions on the ground in Mediterranean countries, MED territorial context specific, within a One Health approach development framework with the Mediterranean diet acting as a Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) lever;
To foster a change in the current perception of the Mediterranean diet as a resource of sustainable development in the Mediterranean, at country and regional level, taking in consideration their contextual differences;
To consolidate the initiative of the World Conference on the Revitalization of the Mediterranean diet as permanent forum for multi-stakeholder and transdisciplinary SFS-MED dialogues and actions to accelerate the 2030 Agenda in the region.

Mediterranean countries have a common precious heritage, such as the Mediterranean diet, which constitutes a powerful sustainable development resource for young people and women in the region on which the future of sustainability lies in their hands.

Although the fact that the Mediterranean diet is well documented and acknowledged as a healthy diet, sadly, it is abandoned, mainly by the young generations, in most Northern, Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries, in which problems of under-nutrition coexist with overweight, obesity and diet-related chronic diseases.

The erosion of the Mediterranean diet heritage, by the loss of its adherence among Mediterranean populations, is alarming as it has undesirable impacts not only on health, but also on social, cultural, economic and environmental trends in the Mediterranean region.

The revitalization of the Mediterranean diet needs to be strongly enhanced for halting the malnutrition in all its forms, the degradation of ecosystems, enhancing people’s livelihoods, counteracting climate change, and stopping the collapse of biodiversity in the region, for the benefit of people and nature.

Published on September 2, 2022