Regional Work

To support regional capacity and collaboration on food waste measurement and reduction, UNEP convenes Regional Food Waste Working Groups in four regions: Africa, Asia Pacific, West Asia, and Latin America & the Caribbean. The Regional Working Groups bring together stakeholders from a wide range of sectors, including government, academia, civil society, and the private sector. Within the working groups, UNEP delivers workshops that provide training on food waste measurement and reduction, and offer participants an opportunity among peers in the region to share their insights, progress and ideas, and learn from one another.

Access workshop materials from past workshops in the resources section of the website; past themes include transitioning to circular food systems, public-private partnerships, and changing consumer behaviour.

Read below for a summary of UNEP’s work and food waste trends in each region.
 

Africa

Food waste is a topic of emerging interest in Africa. The Regional Working Group brought together stakeholders from across the continent to support and drive forward food waste action. At present, much of the activity is driven by non-state actors: researchers, NGOs, think tanks and businesses who see both a problem and an opportunity, though interest from government stakeholders is growing in some cases.

Inspiring stories have been heard about food waste innovators across the continent. These include from South Africa, where the South African Food Loss and Waste Initiative is growing and learning every year, adjusting the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to a South African context with the support of the South African government. In Tanzania, dedicated researchers at the Moshi Co-operative University have been raising awareness of consumer food waste through their students, engaging shoppers at markets and through social and traditional media. In Kenya, a growing ecosystem of circular economy businesses are providing collections and sorting of surplus and waste to redistribute edible food, recycle wastes into animal feed using insect farms and creating compost to protect and enhance the soil. These are just some of the food waste pioneers in Africa, coming from all walks of life: government, academia, entrepreneurial businesses and concerned citizens.

There remain challenges to be overcome to further the food waste agenda, particularly around adequate funding for research, waste collection infrastructure and government buy-in.
 

Asia Pacific

In the large and diverse region of Asia Pacific, countries are at every stage of action on food waste journeys. The Regional Working Group brought together stakeholders from across Asia Pacific to support and drive forward food waste action, learn from those stakeholders who have been working on food waste for years – such as Japan, with its longstanding food waste recycling and reduction activities – and helping to advance the issue in countries where it is only now getting attention. 

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have a key role to play in Asia Pacific, and the Working Group heard from the pioneering work of the Australian Food Pact and their leading research onto food waste causes and solutions, including opportunities for food ‘upcycling’ in a major food producing and exporting country such as Australia. In Indonesia, the agreement GRASP 2030 is bringing together businesses around food waste reduction and redistribution, and has been raising awareness and behaviour change through the #Consumindful campaign. Raising awareness is something businesses can both support and benefit from, with startups such as Surplus in Indonesia and CHOMP in Hong Kong supporting food service businesses to reduce their waste through discounted sales to savvy consumers. 

Technology for food waste reduction is a particular interest in Asia Pacific, both from consumer smartphone apps to engineering technology, such as the introduction of small-scale biogas digesters in Tannomit Market, Bangkok, or the expansion of sustainable cold chain throughout the supply chain in India  

There remain challenges to be overcome in some places to further the food waste agenda, particularly around adequate funding for research, buy-in from government and businesses. 
 

Latin America and the Caribbean

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is a pioneering region for food waste awareness, enthusiasm and action. In LAC, particularly in Latin America, the fight against food waste is being fought on multiple fronts. Firstly, governments are in many cases highly engaged, or are becoming increasingly interested over time. This includes in Brazil, where UNEP is supporting the development of an Organic Waste strategy with a thematic chapter on food waste prevention, and in Uruguay, where a comprehensive strategy to prevent and reduce food loss and waste was launched by the government in 2023. In academia, researchers have been developing new insights on consumer behaviours and causes of food waste, as well as solutions – such as the opportunity to recycle food waste into animal feed using black soldier fly larvae. In addition, there are large ecosystems of food banks – such as those part of BAMX in Mexico – and entrepreneurs establishing startups to reduce food waste and support food redistribution, such as Goodmeal in Chile. With such a range of activity going on, one of the important jobs is coordination. Initiatives like #SinDesperdicio offer a platform to foster knowledge, innovation and support behaviour change across the region, and in-country examples such as the Costa Rican Food Loss and Waste Reduction Network show how coordination and collaboration can work within a country. 

As in many regions, one of the remaining challenges is around securing adequate financial resources to conduct accurate measurement and baseline studies, as well as scaling solutions. 
 

West Asia

Food waste has grown as a topic of interest across West Asia, and nothing encapsulated this more than the launch of the UAE Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems, and Climate Action at COP28 in Dubai. The declaration included direct references to shifting to “more sustainable production and consumption approaches, including by reducing food loss and waste”, and food waste was being covered widely at COP28. This included events on the ne’ma national initiative for food loss and waste in the UAE, a thematic day on food loss and waste at the Food Systems Pavilion. 

In the region, UNEP’s Recipe of Change campaign has driven actors in the hospitality sector to tackle guest food waste; ‘Green Breakfast’ and ‘Green Ramadan’ pilots in Hilton hotels in Dubai, modeled after the Recipe of Change, saw over 60% reductions in pre- and post-consumer food waste. 

This increased interest in the region reflects years of hard work from academics and civil society from Iraq to Bahrain to Lebanon who have generated data on food wastage, developed information campaigns and donating surplus to those in need. In recent years, some countries are seeing efforts to develop national food waste baselines, such as in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. 

There are some unique challenges in West Asia, highlighted by UNEP’s ‘State of Food Waste in West Asia’ report, such as annual religious festivals such as the Hajj and Ashoura which generate significant amounts of food waste over short periods. Hot climates require robust cold chains and storage, particularly for countries which import most of their food. In particular, more widespread and robust data is needed to inform decisions and target food waste mitigation actions.
 

Europe and North America

While not represented within the Regional Working Groups, UNEP supports several food waste activities in the Europe and North America regions. In North America, UNEP supports the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment, a public-private partnership working along the West Coast of the United States and Canada to reduce food waste across the value chain and exploratory studies and pilots on changing consumer behaviour to reduce household food waste. UNEP also works with the Edible Schoolyard Project, a non-profit organization supporting student’s food systems education, in creating lessons and learning materials to raise youth awareness on the topic and empower youth-led advocacy. In Europe, UNEP contributes to the European Commission’s EU Platform on Food Losses and Food Waste.

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