Teaming up to achieve sustainable livelihoods for all people throughout the world was beautifully showcased on October 15 at the UN FAO Headquarters in Rome. Co-organized by the FAO, IFOAM – Organics International and the World Future Council (WFC), the 2018 Future Policy Award (FPA) was awarded. Together, they celebrated the world’s best policies and laws that promote agroecology. The “100% organic state” Sikkim, in India, is this year’s winner of the “Oscar for best policies”, beating 51 nominated policies from 25 countries.
As a councilor of the World Future Council and jury member of the “Future Policy Award”, SEKEM CEO Helmy Abouleish participated in the international event in Rome and presented the silver award to Denmark’s Organic Action Plan, a holistic strategy that succeeded to achieve the highest market share of Organic products in the world, with almost 80 percent of Danes purchasing organic food.
The FPA is the first award that honours policies rather than people on an international level. Next to Sikkim and the Denmark’s Organic Action Plan, Brazil’s National Policy for Agroecology and Organic Production (PNAPO) was awarded. PNAPO invested 364 million Euros which amongst others, helped 5,300 municipalities to invest 30% or more of their school feeding budgets in organic and agroecological products purchased from family farmers. The third Silver Award went to Quito’s Participatory Urban Agriculture Programme than trained more than 21,000 in organic production, so that more than 870,000 kg of organic food was produced annually for the city. TEEBAgriFood received the Vision Award. The initiative has developed a comprehensive evaluation framework for food systems that help decision-makers to compare different policies and the market to value food more accurately.
And the three Honourable Mentions of the Future Policy Award, this year went to the Good Food Purchasing Policy of Los Angeles, USA, to the Agriculture Development Programme of Ndiob, Senegal and to the From Arms to Farms Programme of Kauswagan, the Philippines (2011).
SEKEM Founder Ibrahim Abouleish, had been engaged as a councilor of the World Future Council since its foundation in 2007. After his death, Helmy Abouleish had been elected as new councilor.
SEKEM as a member of the World Future Council congratulates all champions of the Future Policy Award 2018.
Pictures: ©FAO News
Helmy Abouleish is jury member of the “Future Policy Award”
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