2018 The role of cities in the transformation of food systems

This report seeks to highlight trends in the progressive evolution of urban food policy and practice as seen in the 157 submissions from the 2016, 2017 and 2018 cycles of Milan Pact Awards. Short briefs of a selection of 50 practices are referenced in the annex to this report and posted on the Urban Food Actions Platform hosted by FAO in collaboration with the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) Secretariat, ICLEI, UCLG and C40 networks. The analysis of emerging food policy and practice trends in this report are supplemented by examples taken from the 50 briefs.


Cities and their territories are performing a central and growing role in achieving sustainable development. The rise in world hunger and malnutrition and protracted crises in certain regions of the world are increasingly taking on an urban dimension. Challenges of rapid urbanization, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, together with the fact that half of the world’s population lives in urban areas and that this percentage is growing, bringing the urgency of this dynamic to local, national and international levels.