Dr. Ann Trevenen-Jones
Technical Lead, Food Systems Governance Programme
Enhancing Urban-Rural Linkages for Resilient Food Systems
Date: 31 March 2025 -1st March 2025 | Time: 16:00 to 17:30
Venue: France Marseille, at the Climate Chance Europe Africa 2025 Summit.
Background
In recent years, increasing climate challenges have highlighted how important it is to rethink food systems in order to create a just and more sustainable future. With 70% of the world’s food production consumed in cities, and 70% of food-insecure people living in urban or peri-urban areas, cities hold great potential in transitioning from hotspots of food-related challenges to powerful agents of food systems transformation.
Handbook Launch
ICLEI’s CityFood Market Handbook for Healthy and Resilient Cities with contributions from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the World Farmers Markets Coalition (WFMC)
This handbook is a key output of the Strengthening Local Fresh Food Markets for Healthier Food Environments within Planetary Boundaries project. Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ)’s Global Programme Food Systems Transformation, the project aims to create more resilient urban food environments by leveraging markets as catalysts for change.
Led by ICLEI’s Global CityFood Program and enriched by contributions from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and the World Farmers Markets Coalition (WFMC), the initiative empowers consumers to embrace healthier, more diverse diets.
At its core, the handbook introduces the CityFood Market Action Framework, a structured approach to transforming urban food markets. This framework is informed by insights from 16 global case studies, highlighting effective strategies and innovative solutions that address local challenges while unlocking new opportunities for food markets.
The CityFood Market Handbook for Healthy and Resilient Cities
As cities around the world grapple with rising food insecurity, climate pressures, and deepening inequalities, food markets play a critical role in building healthier, more equitable, and climate-resilient urban food systems.
With 16 real-world case studies from cities across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas, the handbook offers concrete examples of how markets can be reimagined as inclusive, sustainable, and people-centered spaces, showcasing how food is accessed, consumed, and valued in cities.
Resources and Assets
GAIN Working Paper n°49- Empowered Local Agency, Infrastructure Investment, And Governance
Food systems, important for food security, nutrition, prosperity, and environmental well-being, are integral to all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Traditional food markets are strategic entry points for food systems transformation, since a diversity of stakeholders (including local producers, vendors, consumers, and government), interact routinely in these spaces. These markets connect millions of stakeholders within and across local food systems and levels of government mandates. As food-insecure regions like sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) rapidly urbanise, most urban, low-income, vulnerable communities are reliant on food purchased from markets. As such, markets are key spaces to guide vendor practices, influence consumer food choices, and strengthen inclusive governance. Despite their critical value, markets’ ‘hard’ (structures and equipment) and ‘soft’ (capacities and resources) infrastructure are significantly under-supported. Investment efforts have been challenged by a lack of understanding of how markets are embedded in the wider food system and markets’ wholesale and retail dynamics, inadequate financial models, insufficient public budgets and capacity, and limited empowerment of key stakeholders.
This paper introduces and illustrates GAIN’s Inclusive Food Systems Governance Model and supporting tools. The model is designed to strengthen investment and empower voices, alongside increased efforts to ensure sustainability and resilience in traditional food markets. It has been shown to support effective market infrastructure investments, to foster local agency and inclusive and equitable food systems transformation, and to be adaptable across different contexts. The case of Marikiti Market, Machakos County (Kenya) shows the model in action, including details of specific investment components and costs. As infrastructure investments are limited, the importance of making a sound business investment case for public and private (and philanthropic) partnerships and banks to invest in traditional markets is critical.
GAIN's Participation-Speakers
Dr. Ann Trevenen-Jones leads the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition’s (GAIN) Food Systems Governance programme, and is the GAIN representative for the Transforming Urban and Rural Food Systems Consortium (TURFS) and for the UNFSS Coalition on Sustainable and Inclusive Urban Food Systems. The Food Systems Governance programme is committed to the empowerment of multiple stakeholders to facilitate nutrition mobilised communities’, leveraging of knowledge, skills and infrastructure, and inclusive governance mechanisms for sustainable and resilient food systems