MILAN URBAN FOOD POLICY PACT: News from June 2021

Currently there are 211 cities that have signed the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, committing to join forces with the leading Organizations and with the other signatory cities to improve the population's food systems on the basis of sustainability and urban food policies

ORIGIN:

In 2014, the Mayor of Milan decided to launch an international protocol aimed at tackling food-related issues at the urban level, to be adopted by as many world cities as possible. The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact was signed on the 15 October 2015 in Milan by more than 100 cities. It represents one of the most important legacies of Milan EXPO 2015.

HOW TO SIGN THE PACT: 

More and more cities choose to join forces with other like-minded actors in working on sustainable food systems and urban food policies. The Milan Pact can be signed by local governments -cities and metropolitan areas- only. Signing the Milan Pact is a fairly simple procedure, and no fees are applied at any stage of the process. Cities interested in signing the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact are invited to get in touch with the MUFPP Secretariat to receive all necessary information.

Please write at mufpp.secretariat@comune.milano.it

.

CONTENTS & MANIFEST: 

The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact is an international agreement of Mayors. It is more than a declaration, it is a concrete working tool for cities. It is composed by a preamble and a Framework for Action listing 37 recommended actions, clustered in 6 categories. For each recommended action there are specific indicators to monitor progresses in implementing the Pact. The Milan Pact Awards offer concrete examples of the food policies that cities are implementing in each of the 6 Pact categories.

The 6 categories include the following topics:

• Governance: The recommended actions falling into the “Governance category” are all those actions aimed at ensuring an enabling environment for effective action in cities, such as: to facilitate collaboration across city agencies and departments, to strengthen urban stakeholder participation, to identify, map and support local and grassroots initiatives, to develop or revise urban food policies and plans and to develop a disaster risk reduction strategy.

• Sustainable Diets and Nutrition: Cities that want to promote sustainable diets, better consumptions and nutrition can be inspired by the recommended actions falling into this category of the MUFPP, fox example: to address non-communicable diseases associated with poor diets, to develop sustainable dietary guidelines for urban environment, to explore regulatory and voluntary instruments to promote sustainable diets in cities and public facilities, to commit to achieving universal access to safe drinking water in urban and peri-urban areas.

• Social and economic Equity: City leaders that want to address inequality and poverty related to food systems, can undertake different recommended actions of this MUFPP category, such as: to use forms of social protection systems such as cash and food transfers, food banks, community food kitchens, emergency food pantries etc. to provide access to healthy food for all citizens, to encourage and support social and solidarity activities, to promote networks and support grassroots activities, to promote participatory education, training and research.

• Food Production: The recommended actions falling into this category are all those actions aimed at strengthening sustainable food production, stressing the importance of rural-urban linkages, such as: to promote and strengthen urban and peri-urban sustainable food production, to apply an ecosystem approach to guide holistic and integrated land use planning and management enabling secure access to land for sustainable food production, to provide services to food producers in and around cities, to support short food chains, to improve waste and water management and reuse in agriculture.

• Food Supply and Distribution: There is a variety of actions and measures that can be adopted by cities that want to ensure a sustainable, safe, fair, continuous and efficient supply and distribution of food into and within cities. For example: to review and strengthen food control systems, to ensure seasonal and local food consumption by linking peri-urban and near rural areas transport and logistics, to develop green public procurement and trade policy to facilitate short food supply chains, to support for municipal public markets, to support for municipal public markets.

• Food Waste: City leaders and policy makers that want to reduce food waste, as well as manage it in a more sustainable way, adopting a circular economy approach, can use the recommended actions of this category that lists down actions such as raising awareness of food loss and waste, recovering and redistributing food, etc.

Within each category, between 6 and 7 actions are established to be carried out. In the following link you can find the complete preamble in english.

https://www.milanurbanfoodpolicypact.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Milan-Urban-Food-Policy-Pact-EN.pdf

Cities interested in signing the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact are invited to get in touch with the MUFPP Secretariat to receive all necessary information. Please write at mufpp.secretariat@comune.milano.it