EXPO Milano, September 22^nd 2015 – Diana Battaggia, Director of UNIDO ITPO Italy, was invited to participate to the first edition of the World Food Research and Innovation Forum, planned as a fixed biennale international event that took place at the Italian Pavilion within Expo site. The event involved representatives and delegates of the most important national and international organizations dealing with food and nutrition issues with the aim to take stock of the situation on relevant topics and challenges also reported in the Milan Charter, the manifesto that engages citizens and institutions in the fight against undernourishment, malnutrition and waste.

The event, sponsored by Emilia Romagna Region and Aster, the Regional Consortium for Industrial Research and Innovation, was organized under the patronage of the Italian Ministries of Agriculture and Economic Development with several national, European and international partnerships. Moreover, it was endorsed by enterprises and fairs’ systems, research networks, and key figures in the world food system.The Forum registered the participation, amongst others, of leading figures such as Stefano Bonaccini, President of the Emilia Romagna Region, Maurizio Martina, Italian Minister of the Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies and Fabrizio Grillo, General Secretary of the Italian Pavilion.

The roundtable that hosted the intervention of UNIDO was chaired by Roberto Ridolfi, Director for Sustainable Growth and Development at DG Development and Cooperation – EuropeAid, and focused the debate on research and technologies for a sustainable food security and safety in developing countries. In this occasion Diana Battaggia underlined the central role of UNIDO in agro-industry projects and presented some figures to remark the importance of youth and women in development issues. In the same context, Diana Battaggia had also the opportunity to show some statistical data on post-harvest losses (which are estimated to be almost 4 million dollars per year just in the Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Bank) pointing out on the unavoidable role of packaging to ensure food safety and security. Finally she mentioned the fruitful collaboration of UNIDO ITPO Italy with Ipack-Ima which led to the realization of East Afripack 2014, the first international exhibition dedicated to processing, packaging and converting technologies in East Africa.

The mission of the Forum was to face the challenges coming from nutrition and food security and to put these issues on the centre of the global agenda development objectives  before 2030; to promote a multi sectorial collaboration between international agencies, the research world, the industry and the policy makers. The first edition of the World Food Research and Innovation Forum in the Milan Expo 2015 was closed within these objectives.