Addressing food loss, waste should be a key priority for the world

Attending the African Urban Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, is a homecoming of sorts for me. While I have been to Kenya many times, this is my first time visiting the country as the COP31 Climate High-Level Champion. It is wonderful to be back among friends in Kibera and Mathare.

As Climate High Level Champion, it is my duty to bring together stakeholders and partners to help translate the climate commitments into action. Here in Africa, like everywhere in the world, this means winning over hearts and minds, harnessing youthful energy to positively transform our cities and communities, making them resilient. But we need to find a language and a way to translate advocacy into action, and action into a movement.

We are fortunate that we can stand on the shoulders of the contributions of previous COPs. The Global Climate Action Agenda, for example, involves coordinating nearly 500 active climate initiatives – covering clean energy, sustainable food systems, forest protection, urban resilience, water security, and more – and works to scale them so that they reach more people.

Of those initiatives, 58 engage directly with Africa and 40 per cent involve local communities. They focus on priority areas for the continent: Food security and sustainable land use, energy access and urban infrastructure, and human and social development. In short, we are investing directly in the future of our brethren by widening job opportunities, delivering better urban services and improving quality of life by bridging the urban-rural divide.

I am optimistic about Africa because there are so many solutions and practices already active throughout the continent. In Kenya, for example, one Action Agenda initiative is expanding electricity access by scaling mini-grids and off-grid solar systems.

In Kisumu, the goal is a city running entirely on renewable energy by 2050. The Kenya Cold Chain Accelerator is helping farmers store and transport their produce using clean energy, keeping food fresh, reducing waste, and boosting incomes in the process.

I am glad that Kisumu is one of the 20 cities selected by the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Zero Waste for its practices. The global Zero Waste initiative, championed by Mme Emine Erdoğan in her capacity as Chair of the Advisory Board, highlights the role of zero waste as a catalyst for climate action. For me, addressing food waste in a world where millions go to bed hungry is one of the most immediate and actionable opportunities for collective action.

Food waste is one of the most concrete areas where we can make progress because it occurs throughout the entire process, from farm to table. Even modest reductions in food loss and waste can have a significant impact on food availability and affordability. It is also important to recognise that food waste looks very different across regions. In many parts of the Global South, the challenge is losses in the value chain, due to gaps in storage, transportation and cold chain infrastructure.

This is precisely why Zero Waste is a priority for me. It is not simply about managing waste better. It is about fundamentally changing the way we produce and consume – preventing waste before it occurs, increasing efficiency at every stage, and returning every resource into the economy. COP31 is the first COP to say that clearly, formally, as a political priority.

The global importance of this issue is already recognised through a UN General Assembly resolution establishing March 30 as the International Day of Zero Waste, supported by an Advisory Board that has helped guide and scale action in this space.

The Action Agenda backs that priority with several initiatives. For example, the Global EverGreening Alliance is accelerating land restoration and regenerative agriculture, supporting 20 million smallholder and pastoralist households to restore degraded land, mobilising $5 billion in finance, and reforming policies in 20+ countries to sustain productive, climate-resilient landscapes by 2030.

And then there’s a plan to advance food security through food recovery and waste reduction, hosted by the Global Food Banking Network alongside more than 60 locally-led food banking organisations across 50 countries, including here in Kenya. It aims to feed more than 50 million people annually, reduce up to 1.3 billion tonnes of food loss and waste, and cut 4.65 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.