By Jeff Klein, President and CEO, The Global FoodBanking Network

Those of us in the business of fighting hunger are particularly interested in the development of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). That is because our work will likely be very relevant to meeting a number of these critical goals. 

Food banks rescue perfectly edible, nutritious food that would otherwise be wasted, and distribute it to hungry people. So, food banks address a wide range of humanitarian and environmental issues—everything from hunger and malnutrition to education and childhood development to global warming.

I recently had the privilege of spending time with Stanlake J.T.M. Samkange, Director of Policy and Programming at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), an organization that is extremely involved in developing the SDGs. Mr. Samkange participated in The Global FoodBanking Network’s (GFN) annual Food Bank Leadership Institute, an educational forum for social entrepreneurs involved in food banking.

Addressing a crowd of more than 75 food bankers from 35 countries, he shared his perspective on the role food banks will play in meeting some of the objectives that are likely to be adopted by the UN in September 2015.

“Food banking will play a significant role in two particular goals.”

Food banking, according to Mr. Samkange, will be especially relevant in achieving two interrelated goals, currently draft Goal 1 and 12.

Goal 1 is to end hunger, improve food security and nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. There are five targets, which effectively define what ending hunger means. The first two are particularly relevant to food banking:

1) Ensure that everyone has access to food and nutrition at all times
2) Eliminate malnutrition – this includes no underweight, overweight, or micro-nutrient deficiencies

Goal 12 relates to sustainable consumption and production. There is a specific target that relates to food loss and waste... so food banking has a very direct relationship to this goal.

Food banks in the GFN network rescued and distributed more than 1.1 billion pounds of food last year. This food—food that was kept from going to landfills—was sourced from various places in the food chain including grocery retailers, manufacturers, produce markets, and farms. GFN plans to triple the amount of food its network distributes annually over the next five years.
 
Nutrition: A Priority in SDGs and Food Banking

Food banking is focused on providing quality calories, so nutrition is a priority. We do not want to convert the hunger problem to an inadequate nutrition problem;  so we continually work to increase recovery and distribution of nutritious food.

In too many cultures, a nutritious family meal consumed together around a table rarely occurs anymore. So, many food banks offer education about the importance of a balanced diet and teach beneficiaries how to prepare and cook nutritious food.

Mr. Samkange agreed that the opportunity goes beyond increasing access to nutritious food and involves educating and encouraging people to eat a nutritionally balanced diet. One of the best ways to do this, he said, is to focus on the children … having programs that target children so they ask their parents for the right kind of diet.

WFP and GFN Collaboration
 
Over the past two years, GFN has been working with WFP to increase dialogue and collaboration in countries where we both have programmatic activity. A great example is in Guatemala where our member food bank Banco de Alimentos de Guatemala and the local WFP operation have been working together to implement programs that focus on nutrition, self-sufficiency and community development.
 
Hunger is becoming more evident in middle income countries which are also rapidly urbanizing. A large number of GFN network food banks support such communities. It’s  a world in which we  are quite familiar and active.  Mr. Samkange noted that WFP will draw on the experience and connections GFN has to help the agency adapt its work to this changing face of hunger.
 
I hope you will watch Mr. Samkange’s presentation to food bankers at H-E-B/GFN Food Bank Leadership Institute 2015.