Home » Session 4: International Initiatives on Sustainable Urban Food Systems
Session 4: International Initiatives on Sustainable Urban Food Systems
The previous session introduced the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) and some local initiatives at the city level. This session will introduce a few important international initiatives on promoting the development of sustainable urban food systems.
C40 Food Systems Network and the C40 Good Food Cities Declaration
C40 connects 97 megacities committed to tackle climate change. Among its different networks established to address various priority topics, the C40 Food Systems Network supports 50 member cities (including Hong Kong) to implement integrated food policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase resilience, and promote health. The focus areas include food procurement, food environment, food waste, regenerative agriculture and governance. 14 of these cities have signed the C40 Good Food Cities Declaration to achieve a “Planetary Health Diet”, to shift to healthy plant-based foods consumption, and to reduce food loss and food waste by 50% by 2030. Milan is one of the signatory cities and its food system policy will be introduced in the next session (C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, 2021).
ICLEI-RUAF CITYFOOD Network
The CITYFOOD Network was established in 2013 to speed up local and regional government action on building sustainable and resilient city-region food systems. Managed by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and RUAF Foundation - Global partnership on sustainable urban agriculture and food systems, it provides networking and training opportunities as well as policy guidance and technical support to its participants. Over 30 local and regional governments from the Global North and South have joined the Network (ICLEI, 2021). Among them, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil received special mentions from the Milan Pact Awards 2019 on food production and food waste policies respectively (MUFPP, 2020).
FAO’s Urban Food Agenda
The Urban Food Agenda is an FAO flagship initiative launched in 2019 to promote sustainable food systems in urban areas through a range of policies, programmes and initiatives developed and implemented in partnership with the public and private sectors. It has four guiding principles – rural-urban synergies, social inclusion and equity, resilience and sustainability, and food systems (inter)connections. Targeted outcomes include mainstreaming and policy support, governance support, knowledge generation and capacity development, outreach and advocacy, as well as partnership and investment (FAO, 2019).
The Rockefeller Foundation’s Food System Vision Prize
As a science-driven philanthropy dedicated to promote the well-being of humanity throughout the world, The Rockefeller Foundation launched the Food System Vision Prize in 2019. Organizations across the globe were invited to submit their visions of a regenerative and nourishing food futures for 2050. Participating teams were invited to attend a series of webinars and do a number of exercises on systems thinking, futurecasting and human centred design. More than 1,300 teams submitted their visions and there were 79 semi-finalists. The 10 finalists further underwent a three-month virtual Accelerator phase to get support for further refining their visions and finding pathways for implementation. Top visionaries received a prize of $200,000 USD (The Rockefeller Foundation, 2022).
Read more:
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. (2021). Food Systems. Retrieved from https://www.c40.org/what-we-do/scaling-up-climate-action/food-systems/
FAO. (2019). FAO Framework for the Urban Food Agenda. Rome. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/3/ca3151en/CA3151EN.pdf
ICLEI. (2021). CITYFOOD Network. Retrieved from https://www.iclei.org/en/CITYFOOD_Network.html
MUFPP. (2020). Milan Pact Awards 2019. Retrieved from https://www.milanurbanfoodpolicypact.org/milan-pact-awards/milan-pact-awards-2019/
Rockefeller Foundation. (2022). Envisioning Regenerative and Nourishing Food Futures for 2050. Retrieved from https://www.foodsystemvisionprize.org/