Dans le cadre du Climathon VIVRE 2023, des jeunes Saheliens proposent des solutions à différents défis climatiques locaux: de l'atténuation des inondations à une meilleure gestion des déchets urbains.

Webcast on the Brussels Briefing on “Green Cities, a pathway for agrifood systems transformation in the urban agenda” that took place on 10 March.  

The event attracted 152 registrations and welcomed 82 unique viewers on the day itself. 

 The w...

Asia’s cities are growing at such a fast pace that nearly 55 percent of the region’s enormous population is expected to reside in urban areas by 2030, and that will have equally enormous consequences for urban food security and nutrition, according to the main findings of a new report by four United Nations agencies.

Rapidly expanding cities in very dry parts of the world must be turned into "green urban oases" to ensure they become both healthier places to live in and more resilient to climate change, says a new report launched today by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Some 35 percent of the world’s largest cities are built in the world’s drylands. This includes such megacities as Cairo, Mexico City and New Delhi. In all, they are home to more than 2 billion people, 90 percent of them in developing countries.

Gilles Martin and Hervé Levite sit down to talk to the FAO Bioeconomy team about FAO's Green Cities Initiative and how sustainable bioeconomy applications can help to transform urban agrifood systems.

Why is FAO interested in cities?

Our world is becoming increasingly urbanized, a phenomenon that is particularly evident in Sub-Saharan Africa, and to a lesser extent in South Asia and Melanesia. In addition to this rapid demographic change, cities from the global south are facing the impacts of multiple other challenges, including climate change and economic turmoil. These combined challenges massively increase the vulnerability of cities, at a time when they also need to reduce their environmental footprint, waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy consumption.

For most of human history, people around the world lived in small communities. However, over the past few centuries – and particularly in recent decades – there has been a mass migration of populations from rural to urban areas. In fact, in 2007, the number of people in urban areas around the globe overtook the number in rural settings. 

The Arbor Day Foundation, along with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), today announced the cities recognised through the Tree Cities of the World programme. 2019 was the first year of eligibility for this worldwide initiative and 68 cities from 17 countries were recognised for their commitment to urban forestry management. The programme has since grown and now includes even more cities worldwide.