ICLEI CityFood Summer Harvest: What’s cooking in July 2024?
Image from Unsplash by Maarten van den Heuvel
It’s been a busy time for ICLEI’s CityFood Program since the celebration of its tenth anniversary last year. Ranging from consultations with food systems actors on fresh food markets, work on numerous projects including AfriFOODlinks and FOODpathS, and important global advocacy engagements at RISE Africa and the ICLEI World Congress, CityFood continues to highlight the importance of urban food systems for healthy people, landscapes and climate. Let’s take a look at how:
GIZ Transformative Initiative on Fresh Food Markets: City Consultations and Peer-to-Peer Exchanges
The beginning of this year saw the start of an exciting project on “Strengthening local fresh food markets for healthier food environments within planetary boundaries” funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the GIZ Global Project on the Transformation of Food Systems. Taking a participatory approach, ICLEI Africa colleagues conducted 50+ one-on-one consultations and hosted a multi-stakeholder dialogue in Lilongwe, Malawi and Lusaka, Zambia to identify transformative initiatives linked to fresh food markets. Key needs and interventions identified were training programmes, infrastructure investments such as shade structures, drainage and cold storage facilities, and strategies for improved waste prevention and management.
On the global side, the project engaged with 18 city case studies from around the world to inform the development of a new Handbook on the state of the fresh food markets, to be released at the end of 2024. Building on these bilateral consultations, participating cities were invited to exchange with their peers during two CityFood webinars dedicated to fresh food markets. During the first workshop, city representatives from Mbale (Uganda), Baltimore (USA), Recife and Curitiba (Brazil) as well as Barcelona (Spain) shared good practices to support healthy food markets, including on food loss and waste prevention, governance and the acquisition of funding. The second workshop invited city representatives from Brasov (Romania), Cleveland (USA), Rourkela and Chennai (India) to present on empowering farmers, vendors and consumers to produce, sell and buy healthy food from the region.
AfriFOODlinks
Lots has also been happening within the AfriFOODlinks Project, with big steps forward in research, city-city exchange, business incubation, youth activation and governance across the 15 African and 5 European cities we’re working in. Here’s a quick peak at some of the highlights from the last six months:
We’re proud to have expanded our research footprint across Africa and Europe, with embedded food system researchers appointed in 19 cities. FIfteen State of City Food system reports have been released, marking a milestone in the urban food system knowledge base in these cities and to the urban food discourse across the continent more broadly. These reports are the tip of the ice-berg on an ambitious research program being undertaken by AfriFOODlinks. Six exciting city-city exchanges have been completed which have seen all five clusters of French and English speaking cities from across Africa and Europe deep diving into each other's food systems and gaining on-the-ground experience from each other's efforts to transform their food environments. Supporting this effort to foster learning between cities, the AfriFOODlinks network city webinar series also kicked off this year, hosting conversational online exchanges with city officials championing change in their city food systems.
Food at the top of the agenda at RISE Africa 2024, May 22-24, 2024
Food was one of the hot topics tackled during the annual RISE Africa Festival. CityFood hosted a session with expert organizations (Està, ECDPM, CIHEAM), local incubators from Cape Town, South Africa (Oribi) and Kisumu, Kenya (WISE) as well as local government representatives from Mlomp, Kisumu and Cape Town to share their perspectives on how African cities can support open innovation for food systems transformation. In another session, partners from the AfriFOODlinks project shared insights on how food markets can be leveraged to facilitate access to healthy and nutritious food in urban areas. City officials, market managers and leading innovators from cities across Africa explained how they managed to make their cities’ food system more inclusive, resilient and sustainable by investing in market upgrades.
FOODPathS Conference, June 10-14, 2024
From June 10-14, Balance Phala, CityFood Co-Lead and Sustainable Food Systems Officer, traveled to Seinajoki, Finland for the annual meeting of FOODPathS, a project funded by the European Commission to support the establishment of the European Partnership for Sustainable Food Systems.
Key recommendations from the consortium included, among others, considering how funding mechanisms can be designed to support smaller countries, small-scale actions and less mainstream topics, actively engaging organizations that are currently not in the partnership, and clearly defining inclusivity in the context of FOODPathS by asking critical questions of who is not present that should be, and whose voices are not represented that should be. Details can be found in the declaration drafted by consortium and advisory board members, emphasizing the importance of inclusive governance, an integrated food systems approach, and the need for mechanisms to monitor progress and indicators to track food systems performance.
CALL TO ACTION
The transformation of food systems into sustainable ones, requires collective effort. #FOODPathS is committed to developing the ideal prototype for the Partnership on Sustainable Food Systems (SFS), and values your opinions on how this partnership should look like. Fill in our survey and share your thoughts on how to transform food systems together.
ICLEI World Congress in Sao Paulo, June 18-21, 2024
A big milestone this year took place in Sao Paulo, at ICLEI’s triennial World Congress at a food session culminating the work of ICLEI CityFood. City representatives from across the globe shared their visions, ideas and good practices on how to transform local food systems for global impact. At the heart of the session’s discussion were three key ingredients towards sustainability and resilience: healthy food environments, inclusive governance, and cross-sectoral alignment and collaboration. A visual notetaker summarized the outcomes:
FAO Roundtable on Markets & Sustainable Food Procurement, June 24-26, 2024
From June 24-26 2024, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and Rikolto convened a Technical Workshop titled “Leveraging local and traditional food markets and public food procurement to improve the availability of nutritious food”. The workshop brought together a host of practitioners, academics, development agencies, and associations representing farmers and marketeers, with the aim to explore the existing evidence and gaps regarding the role of food markets and public procurement processes in contributing to the availability and accessibility of nutritious food, and the associated challenges and opportunities in unleashing their potential.
As shared by Amy Murgatroyd, Professional Officer, ICLEI Africa, the market-focused portion of the workshop highlighted the importance of context and shared definitions. “A wholesale market in the United States might look very different to a wholesale market in Malawi or Zambia, and as we begin to build an ecosystem of support around market-related work, a common language is vital. Workshop participants also addressed the need for greater investment into contextually appropriate and people-centered market infrastructure, as well as capacity building around inclusive governance systems within both market associations and local government. There was a strong sentiment around informality being a durable feature in our society that we should embrace and learn from rather than perceiving it as something in need of ‘fixing’”.
On the procurement side, ICLEI CityFood’s Global Coordinator Peter Defranceschi facilitated two rounds of group work, aimed at supporting the identification of prioritized recommendations for Sustainable Public Food Procurement (SPFP) implementation applicable at global level. School meal programs, which benefits over 418 million children worldwide, present a key opportunity to leverage procurement for sustainable food consumption and production patterns, as emphasized by Peter On this matter, the SchoolFood4Change project - currently in full swing in Europe and in some cities in Africa and Latin America - should bring inspiring learnings in the months to come. This event was organized by the One Planet Network Interest Group on Sustainable Food Procurement, which is co-led by FAO and ICLEI.
Looking Ahead
While the summer has certainly offered quite a range of delicacies to those interested in food systems, CityFood’s global work does not end here. In addition to AfriFOODlinks first policy dialogue at the MUFPP Regional Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from October 10-11, CityFood session at the CFS52 and the FAO-ICLEI Urban Agrifood Systems Global Workshop, stay tuned and engage with the following activities:
- #AfricanCITYFOODmonth 2024: African CITYFOOD month is a platform created to support cross sector, multi-stakeholder engagements and knowledge sharing about urban food systems. This platform recognises that food can be a powerful lever for solving many problems in cities as it is connected to how we plan and run our cities as well as our daily lives. In 2024, we celebrate the unsung heroes transforming African urban food systems. From community kitchens fighting hunger to individuals reviving lost traditions, these silent champions nourish our communities and cultures. Throughout the month, enjoy inspirational videos, creative youth stories, and insightful research on urban food systems. Don’t miss the “Urban Recipes” exhibition at Food Indaba 2024, the “Unsung Heroes” photography competition, and a thought-provoking virtual webinar on local food policies. You can join the campaign by sharing your own stories using #AfricanCITYFOODmonth and #AfriFOODlinks.
- WFTO session on ‘Leveraging fair trade for circular food systems: what can business and cities do?’: On 17 September 2024, CityFood will host a session on as part of the World Fair Trade Organisation Conference in Cape Town, South Africa. Organized in the framework of the AfriFOODlinks project, this session will dive into the synergies between fair trade and circularity and the benefits of integrating both approaches - for both businesses and local governments. After assessing existing challenges, the event will showcase successful examples of collaboration and will seek to explore how cities can support businesses in applying circular or fair trade principles, with a focus on women and youth. For more information about the event, click here.
- Buy Better Food Campaign Petition on Healthy School Meals: ICLEI CityFood launched a Petition advocating for an EU-wide minimum standard of "Healthy school meals and food education for every child in every school" as a concrete recommendation for the European Commission through the Buy Better Food Campaign. This petition has garnered nearly 60,000 signatures and ICLEI CityFood is looking for more participants and partners joining the petition.
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