Over the years, evidence has been generated about sustainable agricultural practices, such as agroecology, that can increase the level of agricultural production with a lower environmental costs. Likewise, the reduction of food miles through the strengthening of short supply chains has also the potential to significantly reduce the environmental impact of food systems. 

However, very often smallholder farmers and their organizations lack the capacities to meet markets requirements in terms of: (1) food safety; (2) required volumes of product; (3) limited capacity to differentiate their products based on their quality and thus missing the opportunity to be rewarded for the sustainable practices they adopt.

Supporting the collective action of producers’ organizations has the potential to increase the supply of locally and sustainable produced food while strengthening the linkage with urban markets. 

Municipalities and local institutions have a critical role to play in promoting the supply of sustainable produced food not only supporting and strengthening local producers’ organizations but also promoting and legitimizing labeling systems intended to value local and sustainable produced food and to communicate that to consumers.

Results

• Portoviejo, Ecuador
  Urban Food Systems Strategies in Portoviejo, Ecuador
  
  
• Rulindo, Rwanda 

Sustainable food procurement is an important entry point to ensure policy coherence and therefore contribute to achieve sustainable food systems transformation at all level.

Municipalities and local institutions can play a key role on designing and implementing sustainable public food procurement schemes. If supported by an enabling policy and regulatory frameworks (including policy space and supporting funding), municipalities can tailor food procurement to their specific contexts and use it to pursue local development priorities, enhancing the impact of these initiatives. Many of the most innovative solutions concerning school feeding have been developed and implemented by local institutions, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is therefore crucial to rethink the role that local governments can play in promoting public food procurements, Moreover strengthening farmers’ organizations capacities to ensure they meet the requirements imposed by public food procurement processes is critical for the sustainability of these programmes. 

Results

• Portoviejo, Ecuador
  Fresh fruit in the schools of Portoviejo
  How to Scale-Up Local Food Procurement (Podcast) 
  
  
• Bambilor, Senegal
  Improving public food procurement in Senegal 
  
  
• Khougheul, Senegal
  Improving public food procurement in Senegal
  
  
• Rulindo, Rwanda 

Food environment has been defined as the ‘interface’ that mediates food acquisition, preparation and consumption within wider food systems through a series of opportunities and constraints that influence people’s choice as they go about their everyday lives (Global panel, 2016; FAO, 2016; HLPE, 2017).
Food retailing is a critical dimension of food environments as it can influence if and how healthy and nutritious food is available and accessible to consumers. Supporting municipalities and local institution in better understanding food retailing, identifying the main gaps and planning specific interventions to ensure availability and accessibility of heathy and diversified food, is a critical area of intervention to improve urban food systems sustainability.  

In particular, the project focused on urban food markets not only because these are a critical food outlets for consumers, but also because municipalities and local institutions are often responsible for markets infrastructures and management. Besides being critical food outlets in urban context, very little information exists of urban food markets, thus resulting in limited policy attention and investments. Supporting municipalities in fully understand and unveil the potential of urban food markets to contribute to nutrition and heathy diets has the potential to further invest in these markets, ensuring accessibility and availability of healthy, diversified and nutritious food to all urban dwellers.

Results

• Portoviejo, Ecuador
  Agroecological fair ‘Agroraíces’ in Portoviejo
  
  
• Bambilor, Senegal 
  
  
• Khougheul, Senegal 
  
  
• Rulindo, Rwanda 

Formal education systems provide entry points to simultaneously address issues related to education, food and nutrition, health and the environment. In this sense, they represent a key opportunity for advancing sustainable development. As one of the main roles of a school is to equip children with life skills and capacities that support their well-being, the interest and action for integrating School Food and Nutrition Education (SFNE) into education curricula has been growing.

Likewise, as environmental concerns broaden and diet-related health and nutrition problems increase, governments and development partners are increasingly interested in the potential of agroecological gardens cultivated around or near to schools. This educational focus can be an important long-term contributor to national health, food security and environment. Municipalities can play a critical role in promoting consumers’ education through agroecology school gardens as they support education institutions by providing the space for these gardens to be created.

Results

• Portoviejo, Ecuador
• Bambilor, Senegal
  Watch: Presentation of a recipe booklet based on local Bambilor products
• Khougheul, Senegal