Collaborative Action and Learning for Local Rights-based Sustainable Food Systems

The local / sub-national space is a key area for more participatory approaches to food policy making, which can work to ensure the content of the policies is aligned with the needs of the community, as well as a greater potential center the experiences of marginalized groups. Local food system initiatives which are often working alongside local authorities, as the closest spaces of democracy for communities, are exemplary of reflexive learning and hold a high potential to put human rights principles into practice. The right to food community in Europe lacks materials which can support more learning on policies and processes to transform food systems in the direction of human rights, which works across sectors and also across levels of governance. This project worked to generate materials and practices which can support continued and ongoing analysis and interventions towards more robust, resilient, and human rights-based local food systems policies. Innovation and experimentation from the bottom-up can fuel the need to transform food systems at different levels, aligning actions at all levels to address sustainability challenges, and enable rights-based food systems across different European contexts.

Through engaging with diverse experiences across Europe, this project sought to increase knowledge and build capacity for European civil-society organizations and the local authorities they collaborate with. It achieved this by generating information, insights, methodologies, and tools to enhance their engagement with democratic decision-making, thereby accelerating the transition towards sustainable food systems and realizing the Right to Food and Nutrition at multiple levels. The specific objectives include: 1) Increase knowledge and understanding of different methodologies, practices, and policies enabling participatory governance at local level and more rights-based sustainable food systems through co-construction of knowledge with local authorities and civil-society organizations; 2) Expand and strengthen the capacities of civil-society organizations and social movements, to engage with local institutional bodies and policy frameworks and become catalyzers of food system transformation; 3) Generate learning spaces for civil society organizations to analyze European regional strategies and policy spaces in order to foster alignment between local sustainable food systems processes and EU frameworks.

This project implemented 3 learning, teaching, and training activities and 5 multiplier events (Germany, Spain, Portugal, Austria, and Belgium) in addition to transnational project meetings. The topics of these activities were as follows: Learning, Teaching, and Training Activities: 1) Participatory Food Policy Spaces at Local Level 2) Dialogues with the Right to the City 3) Connecting the dots: from local to regional transformation of sustainable food systems Multiplier Events: 1)Transforming local food systems – Spain (Barcelona) 2) Right to Food Dialogues in Aveiro – Portugal 3) Learning by doing: strategies for a multi-level transition towards sustainable right-based food systems – Belgium/EU 4) Assessing participatory food policy spaces at local level in Austria 5) Connecting farms to schools - Germany

To fulfill the objectives of the project, partners worked to produce the following outputs: -A mapping/publication entitled “Mapping Local Food Policies and Public Participation in Europe” which shares experiences and lessons learned of local food systems policies and processes for each of the six countries engaged in the project (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden), as a basis to understand opportunities and challenges, as well as to better understand the different approaches that are emerging in different countries across Europe; -An interactive map which provides a visualization and more detail on the cases utilized in the learning materials/results; -A toolkit/publication entitled “Meaningful engagement in local food systems: A human rights-based toolkit for transforming food systems in Europe” which seeks to create greater understanding of how to operationalize human rights based local policy making, including impacts at the level of the EU.