EAThink2015 will join the 2015 edition of European Development Days (EDD15). The project will be illustrated by Cristina Toscano, International Cooperation Officer of Fondazione Cariplo and DEAR ambassador, in the meeting “Feeding the (urban) world: Local solutions for global challenges” (Thursday 04 June 2015 – 09:00 AM – 10:15 AM) moderated by David Edwards,Assistant Director – Prince of Wales’ International Sustainability Unit.

European Development Days (EDD15) will take place in Brussels on 3-4 June 2015 and will serve as a flagship event of the European Year for Development (EYD2015). High-level stakeholders from across government, non-profit organisations, the private sector and academia will gather together at EDD15. Over 6 000 participants are anticipated this year making EED15 the largest edition yet.

Under the motto of the European Year for Development 2015 – ‘Our world, our dignity, our future’, EDD15 will show Europe’s commitment to the eradication of global poverty. The forum builds on a core belief: cooperation is the cornerstone of a fairer world. EDD is an incubator of new ideas to inform our shared aim of a poverty-free, sustainable and fair world where everyone has a chance at a decent life.

“Feeding the (urban) world: Local solutions for global challenges “ abstract:

More than half of the world’s population is now living in cities, and it is expected that this proportion will rise to two thirds in 2015. This trend puts social economies and urban ecosystems under serious pressure, on many fronts: water and air quality, social dynamics, food security, waste management cycle, services, transports, relations between urban centers and regions, etc. The management of these issues, set in a rapidly changing context, is a key issue at a global level.

Recognising that urbanisation increasingly shapes the challenge to food security suggests that the challenge is not a single global issue, but is instead an outcome of the myriad of food supply chains that take food from (mostly) rural areas to (mostly) urban ones. The challenges that are often framed as global issues are also bound to specific places, both in causes and impacts, and in our ability to effect change. During the session, we will address the story of the City Region Food Systems collaborative. This initiative was launched at the World Urban Forum in Medellin in April 2014 and has since been bringing international organisations (such as FAO, UN-Habitat, IFAD, ICLEI, UNCDF, etc.) together to cooperate in raising awareness of how improved city region food policy can foster more integrated and inclusive rural urban development.

This open initiative is targeted at enhancing cooperation, knowledge exchange and policy outreach on this agenda over the next two years with a particular focus on developing the role that local food systems might play in implementing the Post 2015 development framework and in the New Urban Agenda, to be articulated at Habitat III in 2016. One critical part of the required knowledge exchange is how cities might learn from each other and our session will tell the story of the various efforts in this area, including how the city of Milan is using its role as the host of this year’s Global Expo to advocate and develop an Urban Food Policy Pact. This aim of this Pact, which will involve a number of the world’s leading cities is to help develop principles for the development food systems, based on sustainability and social justice and a framework of action for the improvement of city food policy.

INFO LINK: https://eudevdays.eu/topics/feeding-urban-world-local-solutions-global-challenges