FAO statement at the HLPF 2025 Session on SDG 3 and interlinkages with other SDGs – Healthy lives

Achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 requires ensuring food safety and promoting healthy diets, with the integration of the One Health approach into food, veterinary, and health policies and frameworks being essential to this effort.

Food safety prevents foodborne illnesses, reduces exposure to hazardous chemicals, and combats water-borne diseases - contributing directly to health outcomes and mortality reduction.

Poor diets are among the leading risk factors for premature death and non-communicable diseases. In 2021, 10 percent of all deaths were associated with unhealthy diets. Enabling healthy diets is therefore critical.

Promoting dietary patterns that are diverse, balanced, adequate, and moderate - such as those described in the FAO/WHO Joint Statement on Healthy Diets - can significantly reduce nutrition-related health risks.

Ensuring that food is both safe and nutritious is inseparable from environmental sustainability. Environmental pollution causes over 9 million deaths globally each year, but the burden of foodborne diseases from water and soil pollution remains underestimated. Monitoring these issues is critical to achieving SDG target 3.9.

The One Health approach is vital for addressing food safety, antimicrobial resistance, infectious diseases, and environmental degradation. Cross-sectoral collaboration is key to prevent disease spillovers, mitigate chemical hazards, reduce ecosystem pressures, and protect livelihoods.

Transforming agrifood systems to become more efficient, inclusive, sustainable, and resilient ensures the production of safe, high-quality food, balancing environmental, social, and economic outcomes while supporting food security and nutrition.

FAO plays a leading role in advancing these objectives. It supports countries in producing and accessing sufficient, safe, and nutritious food year-round; promoting integrated pest management, responsible antibiotic use, and sustainable livestock practices; reducing the use of highly hazardous pesticides; and monitoring and reducing pollution in agriculture.

FAO also strengthens national capacities in biosecurity, diagnostics, risk reduction, and early warning systems - helping countries transform agrifood systems to improve health outcomes, reduce environmental harm, and build resilience against future health threats.