Reducing Food Waste in Brazil: A Brazilian-Italian Legislative Cooperation Initiative
The 10th annual GPPN Conference, hosted by the Sciences Po School of Public Affairs, featured students' solution oriented ideas and prototypes to address public policy challenges identified by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To participate, each GPPN member school carefully selected up to five student teams to present their projects and compete for the GPPN prize. The result: 32 teams from around the world met in Paris to showcase their ideas on how to solve some of the most pressing global challenges of today.
The reduction of food waste is a key challenge to secure sustainable nutrition security and poverty alleviation in the 21st century. Brazil is the fourth largest food producer in the world but approximately 1.6% of its total population still lives in famine or malnutrition situation. This disparity affects 3.6 millions of Brazilians while generates negative economic and environment outcomes. One of the major barriers that hinders efforts for the implementation of strategies to reduce food losses in the country is the outdated national legislation that, among other issues, imposes legal sanctions against food donors in case of harm to consumers. Countries such as Belgium, France and Italy have recently passed legislation designed to encourage the donation of excess food to curb waste. Given the Italian normative example, this project suggests the establishment of a working group within the Brazilian National Congress including government, private sector, academia and civil society stakeholders to foster discussions on how Brazil could learn from the Italian perspective and good practices to reform its own legislative framework to tackle food waste.
Meet the team
Thiago Elert Soares is a Master of Public Policy (MPP) candidate and Helmut-Schmidt scholar at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. He holds a B.A. degree in International Relations from the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) in Brazil and has participated in an academic exchange program focused on International Relations and Political Science at the University of Paris X - Nanterre in France. Mr. Elert Soares has work experience in the consultancy sector and international organizations. He worked as a consultant in Public Policy and Strategy for Barral M Jorge & Associates in Brazil from 2014 to 2016. Previously, he joined the Capacity Building Program at the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United Nations in Geneva (DELBRASGEN) during the first semester of 2013, and interned at the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, DC, USA in 2012. Mr. Elert Soares also served as a consultant for the Brazilian Ministry of Development and as a Trainee at ThyssenKrupp in Brazil.
Interested in learning more about the GPPN programs and degrees? Find out here!
