Launched in October 2023 at the First Global Summit of the School Meals Coalition in Paris, the Cities Feeding the Future initiative is designed to support cities in their responsibility to implement school meal programs while fostering connections between local and national governments. The initiative is led by the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP).
The School Meals Coalition (SCM) is an international network featuring over 105 governments, 140+ partners, and 6 regional bodies, all working together with the aim of improving and scaling up school meal programs to ensure that every child has access to healthy, nutritious meals in school by 2030. Through the Cities Feeding the Future Initiative, the SMC aims to effectively align the efforts and commitments of its member states, facilitating successful implementation at the city level.
The Initiative’s Objectives
Cities Feeding the Future focuses on three main objectives:
- Empowering cities: Assisting cities in implementing effective school meal programmes.
- Knowledge sharing: Facilitating the exchange of best practices among cities and global actors.
- Supporting local decision-making processes: Assisting cities in making informed decisions about school meal programmes.
Areas of Action
To achieve these goals, the initiative focuses on three main areas of action:
- Advocacy: Identifying champion mayors and organizing national dialogues to promote advocacy actions regarding the importance of implementing school meals and highlighting best practices worldwide (through events, and technical field visits).
- Best Practices: Creating an urban database to collect examples of excellence in school meal programmes and facilitate the exchange of best practices, highlighting different approaches (through technical workshops).
- Research: Supporting cities with specific learning needs to co-design new school meal programmes or improve existing ones (supporting the development of feasibility studies).
Key Activities
So far, the Cities Feeding the Future initiative, has carried out several significant projects, including:
- Report School Meals: The Transformative Potential of Urban Food Policies: presenting virtuous example coming from the MUFPP community.
- Organisation of the MUFPP Regional Forum in Africa (October 2024, Addis Ababa) focused on “School Meals Programs for Healthier and Sustainable African Cities.”
- Organisation of the High-Level Conference “The Power of Public Food Procurement” (June 2024, Copenhagen) focusing on the transformative potential of school meals for children aged 1-16 .
- Organisation of the MUFPP-ASEAN School Meals Summer School (July 2024, Bandung, Indonesia)
- Creation of an Urban Database on School Meal Programs: A key resource for collecting and sharing data and best practices.
