Independent Dialogue
Geographical focus:
No borders
Discussion topic outcome
Actions that address the role of finance and related tools in territorial governance and food system sustainability need to: • Link actions to the SDGs through coordination across scales with public procurement as a tool to bring goals together. A food lens is needed for all the work being done with the SDGs. We are missing the interconnections between different challenges—for example, biodiversity, climate change, food and nutrition security and access to water. Territorial perspectives that work through a community-based approach can address many of these challenges at the same time whil
... Read moree stressing the right to food. • Bring local food into care facilities. Move away from reliance on major oligopoly of food service providers. Why is food an auxiliary service rather than core service? Look to other places –e.g., Europe – for examples and models about how to make healthy food central to care. • Connect food procurement to climate change and the opportunity to move toward territorial approaches for sustainable food procurement. Address the contradiction between cutting budgets and fulfilling commitments to SDGs. Sustainable procurement can result in healthier people and ecosystems and so can be a cost saving in the long run. • Require longer transition periods for suppliers to adjust and working together to set expectations. Keeping out some of the goods that can be procured locally to look for closer sources. Establishing relationships with local suppliers—need tenders to have more competition. • Link procurement to education to show how food is grown/harvested/ transported to help inspire future farmers and support learning about food systems. For example, in cooking class curriculum, add growing own plants to see full cycle. • Create networks of actors, for example procurement officers, to help understand the landscape of people involved and possible actions. School food programs could help build public procurement dialogues and infrastructure. • Breakdown government silos. Post-COVID periods will be important so school food programs ensure every child is getting a decent, nutritious meal. Lowest price tenders as a priority versus other social attributes including sustainable diets. There are gaps where people can work and push back against misconceptions, such as the notion that trade agreements are a solid barrier. Rather, we can make a lot of change within the current system and also chip away at the other parts. • Procurement networks, infrastructure, and knowledge-sharing to foster knowledge co-creation and knowledge mobilization. • Bring Indigenous communities and those using traditional practices to the table as decision makers to include knowledge that has supported sustainable food systems for millennia. Document and support different knowledges and different diets that are adapted to territorial circumstances. • Write school food programs into law. Brazil provides an example of success in food school program. • To monitor change, there is a need to steer away from outcomes that can create problems and false, over-simplified understandings about the dynamics and complexity that is the food system. Instead, there is a need to focus on process and deliverables. Dynamic monitoring systems that use targets and metrics, for example, process indicators, can be really helpful at shifting the narratives. The divergence between narratives and actions within countries—some may be funding programs through development initiatives but don’t have programs in their own countries. New Zealand provides an example of how to start from a needs-based approach and scale to a universal program. • More people need training and there needs to be succession planning for leaders within procurement to pass on process for success and share tacit knowledge. • Organizations can contribute by joining networks and linking up across networks. This can include support for Food Policy Councils, educating people in legal terminology, and/or food policy for local procurement. Read less
Action Track(s): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Keywords: Data & Evidence, Environment and Climate, Finance, Governance, Human rights, Innovation, Policy, Trade-offs, Women & Youth Empowerment