The International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF) highlighted the important contribution of animal nutrition to help contain Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) at the 75th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations during a “High-Level Interactive Dialogue on Tackling AMR” on April 29, 2021. 

Alexandra de Athayde, IFIF executive director, spoke to UN delegates and said that IFIF has been committed to supporting addressing AMR since 2016 when the UN Member States adopted the Political declaration of the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on antimicrobial resistance and the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) identified AMR as a major threat to human and animal health.

Calling for accelerated action to tackle the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the President of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, H.E. Volkan Bozkır, convened this High-level Interactive Dialogue of the General Assembly on Antimicrobial Resistance with World Leaders, joined by UN experts, business and civil society leaders, who discussed practical steps to address AMR in the midst of COVID-19 recovery plans.

In her opening remarks, de Athayde explained how “adequate animal nutrition is an important part of the solution to help contain AMR and the feed sector plays a critical role in supporting animals’ optimal health with high resilience capabilities to stressors through safe and high-quality feed and access to nutritional innovation.” She called on World Leaders to “create an environment to fund more public research in animal nutrition and accelerate the innovation and transformation of the animal nutrition sector, including the adaptation and strengthening of regulatory frameworks to enable innovative feed solutions.” 

de Athayde also underlined the strong and ongoing collaboration with the FAO to address some of these issues, for instance through better dialogue with competent authorities, awareness-raising and knowledge sharing, as well as IFIF’s commitment to promoting feed safety around the world.

At the UN General Assembly, de Athayde joined Panel 4 on “Ensuring sufficient and sustainable AMR financing” to showcase progress, best practices, and innovative solutions to address the threat of AMR and achieve shared objectives. 

The Panel was moderated by Elizabeth Cousens, president & CEO, United Nations Foundation, and the panelists included Jens Spahn, Federal Minister of Health, Germany, Roland Driece, Director International Affairs, Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, Netherland, as well as Muhammad Ali Pate, global director, Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice, World Bank, Maria Lettini, executive director, FAIRR Initiative and Julie Gerberding, executive vice president and chief patient officer, Merck and Alexandra de Athayde, executive director, International Feed Industry Federation.

watch IFIF's two interventions here and Panel 4 “Ensuring sufficient and sustainable AMR financing” here.