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Short abstract:

After CoP28, cities reduce GHG emissions and food waste, and promote sustainable diets.The Fusilli Project empowers municipalities to innovate for holistic, sustainable, and local food systems.This paper analyzes their advances, capabilities, and challenges in building sustainable urban food systems

Long abstract:

After CoP28, it became obvious that where national governments are falling short, cities and regional governments are pioneering policies on food and climate change with dozens of inspiring examples of effective action on the ground. Local governments are spearheading actions to cut GHG emissions by promoting healthy and sustainable diets, reducing food waste, shortening food supply chains, supporting a transition to organic farming, and ensuring their lowest income inhabitants can access healty and sustainable food. These policies are cutting greenhouse emissions as well as providing a wide range of social, health, economic and environmental benefits. The central aim of the Fusilli Project, along with the multitude of urban food system projects that proliferated in recent years, is to empower municipalities to generate an innovation ecosystem, strengthening their capacity to design, construct and deploy holistic policies and actions enabling food system change, the consensus being that legacy food regimes need to evolve towards more healthy, sustianable, equitable, inclusive and local city region food systems.

Starting from the articulation of their “needs and gaps” and moving to Urban Food System Plans, FUSILLI cities have demonstrated very large disparities, depending on the availability of resources, previous experience with urban food planning and local political will behind food system change. The progress of FUSILLI cities towards more sustainable urban food systems continues, gaps and weaknesses coming into relief as the Project continues. This paper is an attempt to comparatively analyse their advances, their respective capabilities to pinpoint gaps and overcome declared barriers and obstacles.