The Dakar Forum: fostering cooperation among West African Cities

11 Nov 2016

From 21 to 23 September 2016 the capital of Senegal hosted the Dakar Forum to discuss and share ideas and projects on the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact implementation and sustainable urban development.
The forum saw the participation of six West African Cities: Dakar, Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire), Brazzaville (Republic of Congo), Douala (Cameroon), Ndjamena (Chad) and Nouakchott (Mauritania) and the city of Milan.
After the opening remarks of Paolo Venier, Italian Ambassador in Senegal, Stephane Meer, representative of the EU delegation in Dakar, the first deputy mayor of Dakar and Anna Scavuzzo, vice mayor of Milan, delegates from participant cities presented the general characteristics of their food systems, their situation with regards to food security, their best practices and case studies related to the activities already undertaken in each Municipality on food issues.
Anna Scavuzzo underlined the importance to foster regional cooperation among the MUFPP signatory cities, to develop exchanges of practices among local authorities that share similar challenges.
Some common challenges that African cities are experiencing emerged, such as:
• A rapid population growth
• Uncontrolled urban development
• Increase demand of basic human services
• Poverty rates and lack of access to healthy food
• Lack of adequate food preservation systems

During the workshop, the cities representatives participated in three different groups, that reflected the categories of the Framework for Action of the Pact. The first group discussed the inputs of “Governance and Social and Economic Equity”, the second group “Sustainable Diets and Nutrition and Food Waste”; while the third group analyzed “Food Production and Food Supply and Distribution”. This work focused the problems and issues that cities face when implementing the Pact and their best practices; critical aspects and, eventually, opportunities were then re-analyzed as a mean to solve some of those issues.
As a final result, the Cities produced a statement defining the input of the Pact on which they would like to keep on working together as a recommendation to the Steering Committee of the MUFPP.
Participants have all been called upon to play their part into the framework designed by the Guidelines of MUFPP; In order to go smoothly through the discussion, the facilitation session was mainly dealing to several specifics practices already undertaken in the Cities;
• School canteens in Dakar
• Peasant house in Niamey
• Attiéké: manioc supply chain in Abidjan
• Green belt in Ndjamena
• Micro-gardens in Dakar
• Land consultation framework in several cities
• Community Refrigerator shared by stall owners in local market
• Facilities supports to agro-ecological production in several African cities
• Fair price shops Nouakchott
Download here the Reccomendations of the Dakar Forum