Ghent and Lima won MPA 2018

One goal of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact is to foster the exchange of ideas and solutions for food related issues among cities. One of the most important mechanisms to enhance this exchange is the Milan Pact Awards (MPA), promoted for the past three years by the City of Milan with the support of Fondazione Cariplo. On 4 September eight cities have been awarded with two monetary prizes and six special mentions during the MPA ceremony: a unique opportunity to learn from these selected practices on current and innovative ideas and solutions adopted by MUFPP cities.
This year’s highest score, endowed with 15.000Euro, was awarded to the city of Ghent, (Belgium) for the good practice “Foodsavers Ghent”. The city created a program to scale up food wast recovery after two years of participatory planning. FoodSavers is a platform linking supply and demand for leftover food in collaboration with social organizations and restaurants, food banks, retail and wholesale markets and even the farm level. Full participation of private, public and social sectors builds upon a foundation of an integrated approach to food governance with Ghent’s Food Council. Clear targets were set not only for recovery of leftover foods for distribution, but also for climate change mitigation, social employment and  fighting poverty. These were more than exceeded and Ghent’s integrated approach to food waste recovery is already a model for other municipalities inside and outside Europe.
The city of Lima (Peru) received the second monetary prize also endowed with 15.000Euro for the category “Challenging Environment” for Programa Lima Sostenible: Promoviendo la seguridad alimentaria/Sustainable Lima: Promoting Food Security. From an assessment of the urban and territorial food system, a multi-actor platform and core group were created to prioritize actions and coordinate programs to protect valuable farmland and plan new markets and short supply chains. The legal framework include policies at the city level but also aligns with the National Food Security Strategy for Peru and with four 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The monetary prizes will be used for transferring the good practice from winning cities to other MUFPP cities in order to help them develop their own sustainable food practices. Last year  the prizes were awarded to Toronto, Canada, and Antananarivo, Madagascar.
Additional special mentions go to the following cities and good practices:

  • Governance: Wanju (Republic of Korea) for its Local Food No. 1 Project providing a sustainable farming guarantee to 3,000 family farmers, and creating jobs with social and economic benefits to the circular economy
  • Sustainable diets and nutrition: Parma (Italy) for its Giocampus Project/Fostering the Wellbeing of Future Generations, which connects local food culture, food education, physical activity and environmental education to create in children and their families a culture of wellbeing
  • Social and economic equity: Belo Horizonte (Brazil) for its system of Popular Restaurants to serve low-income residents with lower cost nutritious foods, in particular for serving free meals to homeless street people
  • Food production: Sao Paulo (Brazil) for its programm From the Land to the Table: Local sustainable development through school linking food production to consumption, the city to the countryside, and providing quality food to those most in need while strengthening the ecosystem.
  • Food supply and distribution: Seoul (Republic of Korea) for its Urban Rural Coexistence Public Meal Service Project providing healthy food at affordable prices for public meal service while providing a good income for farmers
  • Food waste: Turin (Italy) for Progetto Organico Porta Palazzo: Towards Circular Markets, an efficient waste collection system for the largest and most culturally diverse food market in the city (and the largest open air market in Europe).

 
Altogether, 51 good practices from 37 cities were submitted for this third round of Awards and were evaluated by an international jury composed of representatives of the United Nations, scientific and research institutions, civil society, the private sector and the Fondazione Cariplo. The MPA reached its third edition and collected 157 practices on more sustainable territorial food systems

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