On Thursday 30 June, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) will join forces to hold an important Session within the 11th World Urban Forum.

The three UN organizations have been invited to convene a special “ONE-UN Event” focused on urban food systems, under the title “Urban Food Systems Governance in small and intermediate cities: bridging the national-local divide”.

The UN Session will take place on Thursday 30 June from 12.30 to 14 (CET), in Katowice (Poland), within the premises of the World Urban Forum-11, which will be going on from 26 to 30 June.

This event is also an important follow up of recent global initiatives, related to the transformation of urban food systems. As a main reference, the recent Food Systems Summit, convened by the UN Secretary General in September 2021, clearly recognized the key role of cities and local governments to achieve sustainable food systems transformation at all levels.

The main challenge today is that many factors shaping food systems operate beyond the urban scale and decisions made by cities and local governments have wide reaching implications. On the other hand, food related policies are often designed by national governments and do not take into consideration local concerns and challenges, therefore often resulting in inefficient and ineffective policies.

Additionally, food systems matters should be discussed through an integrated approach, with their issues involving not only food, but also environment, health, infrastructure, etc.

Therefore, the immediate challenge in front of us is to find ways to solve these institutional gaps and this event will be the opportunity to identify practical mechanisms through which UN Agencies can join forces to bridge this gap. The panel will be an opportunity to listen to the voice of cities, national governments, as well as representatives from UN-Agencies to identify innovative solutions for joint action.

Lastly, during the recent FSS and under FAO leadership,, UNEP, UN Habitat and other partner organizations launched a Coalition on Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Food Systems, with the explicit objective of fostering the engagement of cities in the overall food systems transformation agenda.

More info on the Agenda Here

See the Event on the World Urban Forum 11 Programme Here