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GGGI organizes World Food Day workshop for Youth in UAE

On October 16, World Food Day, the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE), together with Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), the Embassy of Australia and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, co-organized a half-day Youth Workshop – “Our Food Our Future”. Dedicated to the young generation in the UAE, the workshop took place at the “Youth Hub”, a government-supported seedbed for youth-led innovations andknowledge exchange center in Dubai.

 

The capacity building workshop was the latest in a series of events launched in 2015 as part of GGGI’s Green Growth Youth Program and came under the Ministry’s Youth Strategy. It aimed to create a discussion around the concept of sustainable agriculture, food consumption, and climate change. The event served as a knowledge sharing platform for university students, young professionals and researchers in UAE, and facilitated a dialogue with policy makers and entrepreneurs in the agri-food sector.

 

 

The event was also an opportunity for students and youth who have developed innovative projects in sustainable food to showcase their work. The FertiFood Team and BigFoot teams from Murdoch University in Dubai presented ideas on a solar energy-led automatic “Food Waste Composting Bin” and a “Bigfoot Calc App”, an application that can assist consumers in making sustainable choices when purchasing fruits and vegetables. AlMaha AlMuhairi, founder of “Fresh Fridge,” shared her prototype fridge that has the ability to grow 50 different types of micro-herbs in a controlled environment without compromising on nutritional values. Participating students also expressed their opinions on modern agricultural technologies like hydroponics, a concept that is gaining prominence in the UAE and the other GCC countries facing challenges of arable land and depleting ground water.

 

 

The event was attended by HE Dr Thani bin Ahmed Al-Zeyoudi, inister of  Climate Change and Environment, Ambassador Frank Mollen of the  Netherlands, Ms Julie Shams, Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of Australia, and Mr. Nabil Gangi, Representative in the UAE for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

 

 

The youth program maintained online social media coverage by using the event hashtags #OurFoodOurFuture #WFD2018 #ZeroHunger #Food4Future.

 

 

More pictures from the event:

(Photographs and Video Courtesy to the UAE MoCCaE)