Youth Pledge and the Food Systems Summit

Speech delivered by Sophie Healy-Thow, from Ireland

Hello Everyone! Thank you for the organizers to give young people like myself a voice in this venue and enabling me to express that voice. We cherish this!

What we eat shapes us.

Young people like me of today’s digital age are perhaps more switched-on and connected than earlier generations, but we also deal with many new challenges; fewer jobs in the market, schooling drop-outs, COVID-19, climate change anxiety, mental health issues, and many others. We are also increasingly facing a rising burden of multiple forms of malnutrition-undernutrition, overweight and obesity.

Yet, we know that we have power over our decisions and are increasingly exercising our ability to influence particularly in low- to middle-income countries where we make up a good percentage of the population. Globally, do you know that youth from the age of 15- 24 represent 18% of the global population? That is 1.1Billion people. And more than half the world’s population is under the age of 30.

In recent years, with Greta Thunberg and the likes, the world has witnessed a powerful youth-led movement to mobilise the public opinion on the urgency to act now for the sake of our beautiful planet.  She along with other young leaders paved the way and gave us HOPE that yes, BIG YES, that we can and must indeed be agents for change.

It is against this backdrop, that I have joined 14 other young leaders from around the world, all of us are working closely with The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Food Foundation, and like-minded organisations to deliver a pledge at the first ever UN Food Systems Summit taking place in September 2021.

We realize that what we eat influences our health and wellbeing, as well as our personal life. It affects our ability to learn in school or to work at home or in a workplace. Our diet is linked to our development, our relationships, our potential to make money, and our happiness. 

What we eat also impacts the environment – through the energy, land, soil, water, and other things used to produce food, and to get it from its origins to our snack, meal, or bin. Sadly, food systems are a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. They change how land and water are used. They drive pollution, as well as losses of wildlife. But they can be better-shaped to avoid these sorts of damaging impacts.

This is precisely what prompted us to catalyse a worldwide youth movement called “Youth #Act4Food #Act4Change”. A global campaign to bring one million signatures to the Summit. And we won’t stop there. We want a decade of action to transform our food systems through sustained actions from every responsible component of our society and of course hold everyone accountable starting with ourselves. Time is pressing. We can no longer be indifferent and we cannot rest until change takes place.

In essence, the pledge to act4food is our promise to galvanising action to defeat hunger, improve health and heal the planet. We want youth like us to focus on our personal action as a contribution to system change, and by the same token hold our governments and businesses accountable – to act boldly and urgently.

The #Act4Change are the means by which we – the youth – can make change happen at a national and community level. Those taking the pledge will host workshops and meaningful exchanges about the importance of sustainable healthy diets, animals and biodiversity and our planet. These activities will be connected through a comprehensive digital platform (social media networks) to promote, support and communicate consistent messages of the campaign.

We are aiming for the platform to go live in mid-April available in the 6 UN languages and more.

By doing so, we follow the example of our team member from Bangladesh, a mover and shaker Dipty Chowdhury. Together with thousands of national young champions, they have managed to convince the Government of Bangladesh to pioneer a national plan of action with nutrition as a key pillar targeting adolescents, around a campaign Dipty and her peers had initiated called the Eat Well, Live Well campaign.

We want millions of Diptys everywhere.

We take an immense pride and joy in working to the achievement of reaching such an impressive milestone. We strongly believe that one million signatures this year and 100 million by 2030 can be done. These pledges, while perhaps small individually, together offer a powerful signal to governments and businesses to meet the growing demand for sound, nutritious, and sustainable food. 

As youth we #Act4Food #Act4Change

Thank you.