RUAF Update - October 2016

RUAF Update | October 2016

October 2016

RUAF Update

no.28

In this update: Update on RUAF projects • • • • • •

Pilot Course on Urban Agriculture and Entrepreneurship Role of Urban Agriculture in Post-disaster and Emergency RUAF at the Habitat III Conference Initiative for Dutch City Deal “Food on the Urban Agenda” CityFoodTools Water, Land and Ecosystems

New RUAF publications • • • • •

Urban Agriculture Magazine no. 31: Inclusive Use of Urban Space RUAF in WASH Alliance International: Three factsheets online City Region Food Systems and Food Waste Management: Linking urban and rural areas for sustainable and resilient development THE MSP GUIDE How to design and facilitate multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Vulnerability Analysis of Urban Agriculture Projects: A Case Study of Community and Entrepreneurial Gardens in the Netherlands and Switzerland AGRUPAR. Photo by http://www.conquito.org.ec/

RUAF participation in events • • • • • • • • • •

World Humanitarian Summit German Habitat Forum Urban Management Tools for Climate Change Food Security in an Urbanising Society EIP-AGRI Workshop Cities and Food – Connecting Consumers and Producers FOOD 2030: Research & Innovation for Tomorrow's Nutrition & Food Systems Milan Urban Food Policy Pact Annual Gathering and Mayors Summit Habitat3 Conference Resilient Cities 2017 Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture

CONQUITO new RUAF member!

CONQUITO, the economic development agency of the Municipality of Quito in Ecuador, is a new partner of the RUAF global partnership. CONQUITO has a longstanding experience with the participatory urban agriculture programme AGRUPAR and is now participating as one of the pilot cities in the framework of the RUAF/FAO programme on City region food system assessment.

Within the Municipality of Quito, CONQUITO is exploring the possibilities for establishing a more integrated urban food policy, integrating urban agriculture and other policy domains within the municipality and the surrounding city-region. It is hoped that the UN Habitat3 conference that is hosted by the City of Quito this month will add momentum to this policy process. Read more on RUAFs activities at Habitat3 further on in this Update.

RUAF Update | October 2016

Update on RUAF projects Pilot Course on Urban Agriculture and Entrepreneurship Urban Green Train launched its pilot course on urban agriculture and entrepreneurship on the 1st of August.

121 participants have registered and have access to the Moodle platform hosted by the University of Bologna.

The course provides a useful toolbox for anybody looking to operate directly or indirectly in the world of urban agriculture. It offers a complete and structured training pathway tackling all aspects relevant to doing business in urban agriculture. The elearning course includes 5 Modules with a total duration of 70h: Module 1: Introduction urban agriculture concept and types Module 2: Resource use from a challenge perspective Module 3: Urban agriculture types/production systems and short food chains Module 4: Networking and governance Module 5: The world of business and urban demands A limited number of participants will take part in the face to face course organised in Bologna, from 14 to 25 November 2016, and includes plenary lessons, group work and study visits.

If you are interested to be updated on the developments of the course or Urban Green Train project activities please subscribe to our newsletter or contact f.hoekstra@ruaf.org or info@urbangreentrain.eu.

Role of Urban Agriculture in Postdisaster and Emergency In 2015, RUAF and the Spontaneous City International (SPcitI) started collaboration in the context of the Syrian Refugee crisis, with a geographical focus on the region of Mafraq in Northern Jordan. A first mission had been commissioned in 2015 by the International Cooperation Agency of the Association of Dutch Municipalities (VNGI).

As a follow up, a second mission was undertaken in July 2016. The aim of the work in Northern Jordan is to

support both host and refugee communities residing in urban areas and in Al Za’atari refugee camp under the wider umbrella of regional development. Local food production, processing and marketing can be stimulated together with improving participatory planning and service provision related to food. The mission in July identified a number of interventions to support the development of small-scale, integrated food and gardening activities for host and refugee communities residing in urban and rural areas, as well as in and around the refugee camp areas. For more information: r.van.veenhuizen@ruaf.org.

New Agenda for Humanity The first World Humanitarian Summit was held in Istanbul on 23 and 24 May 2016 and brought together governments, humanitarian organisations, people affected by humanitarian crises and new partners including the private sector to propose solutions to our most pressing challenges and set a New Agenda for Humanity to keep humanitarian action fit for the future. World leaders from all sectors of government and society were asked to uphold five core responsibilities: 1. Prevent and end conflict 2. Respect rules of war 3.

Leave no one behind 4. Working differently to end need 5. Invest in Humanity. Two major initiatives were launched at the WHS: The Global Alliance for Urban Crisis, and the Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation, promoting innovative tools and practices in humanitarian preparedness and response. Together with the Lemon Tree Trust and the University of Coventry, CAWR, RUAF organised an exhibition space on “Urban agriculture and greening innovation activities in the context of forced displacement”.

RUAF also met with SODEM, an association of Turkish Mayors, discussing options and strategies against urban sprawl and pro-greening. A delegation of SODEM visited the Netherlands in June this year, and further collaboration is currently being discussed. For more information: r.van.veenhuizen@ruaf.org.

Community garden in Mafraq, Jordan. Photo by René van Veenhuizen

RUAF Update | October 2016

RUAF at the Habitat3 Conference Quito, 17-20 October 2016 From 17-20 October 2016 the UN Habitat3 conference will take place in Quito, Ecuador. In the framework of this important conference numerous official side and networking events as well as parallel events are organised that address the key role of food and urban-rural relations in urban development and city planning. RUAF is involved in the following events: Whole week: Exhibition "Carrot City" about Urban Agriculture organised by Ryerson University, FAO Food-for-the-cities, RUAF Foundation and CONQUITO. The exhibition will be partly in the UN Pavillon within the official Habitat3 programme and partly hosted by the Municipality of Quito in the venue of their Sustainable Cities Campus. After Habitat3, the exhibition will stay for one more week in Quito.

Saturday 15/10, morning. Internal debate and strategy meeting on "Food in City Planning" organised by VECO Andino and RUAF to discuss strategic lines and collaborations. With participation of the cities of Quito, Gent (both RUAF members) and Tegucigalpa and representation of RIMISP. Sunday 16/10, 13:00-14:30 Habitat3 Side event "Integrating Sustainable Food Systems into Urban Development", organised by FAO. The FAO/RUAF programme on City Region Food Systems will be presented as part of the event by FAO, as well as the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. The Mayor of MedellĂ­n, one of the pilot cities in the FAO/RUAF CRFS project, will speak at the event.

Tuesday 18/10, 9.30-10.30 Habitat3 Side event "Good Governance for Healthy and Sustainable Urban Food Systems", organised by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the Food Smart Cities for Development a EU project coordinated by City of Milan, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. The Mayor of Utrecht and the Director of CONQUITO will speak at this event. Both are pilot cities in the FAO/RUAF CRFS project.

Tuesday 18/10, 16:30-18:30 Habitat3 Networking Event "Food insecurity and climate change in cities: Meeting challenges through an integrated approach", organised by US State Department, International Sustainability Unit of the Prince of Wales's Charitable Foundation, C40, Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, FAO, WFP. Henk Renting from RUAF will participate in a forum discussion on city-region approaches to climate change and food security.

Wednesday 19/10 09:00-13:00 Event "AlimentaciĂłn para las ciudades, el reto del desarrollo sostenible" (in Spanish) organised by RUAF, CONQUITO, VECO Andino, and ICLEI as part of the Sustainable Cities Campus programme. organised by the Muncipality of Quito. RUAF gives key speech and moderates Forum of Latin American Cities experiences.

Wednesday 19/10, 16.30-18.30 Habitat3 Networking Event "Strengthening urban-rural linkages through Integrated Territorial Development", organised by GIZ, Communitas Coalition, BMZ, ICLEI, Government of Colombia, UN Habitat and UNCRD. RUAF will speak on city-region approaches to food and nutrition security in the framework of integrated territorial development. There will also be a presentation of the experience of the AGRUPAR urban agriculture programme by the Managing Director of CONQUITO. Thursday 20/10, 17.15-19.15 Fabrica Ciudad event Hungry City about Food Security, urban agriculture and sustainable development, organised by the Cities in Transition project of Pakhuis de Zwijger, the Netherlands and RUAF. More information: https://dezwijger.nl/ programma/the-hungry-city For more information please contact Henk Renting at h.renting@ruaf.org.

RUAF Update | October 2016

Initiative for Dutch City Deal “Food on the Urban Agenda” RUAF has been engaged in the last few months in the development of a City Deal between 12 cities in the Netherlands, 2-3 national ministries and 1-2 provincial governments. The city deal is a legal instrument in the Netherlands to promote collaboration between city, regional and national governments on specific challenges.

This City Deal proposal focuses on urban food policies and different aspects of integrating “Food on the Urban Agenda”, for which the Milan Urban Policy Pact has been an inspiring and guiding document. The activities of the City Deal, which is foreseen to be signed in December 2016/ January 2017, will focus on: exchange and dissemination of best practices, food governance innovation, identifying bottlenecks and needs in policy and regulation, and defining proposals for integrated food policies at national and EU level. For more information contact Henk Renting at h.renting@ruaf.org.

CityFoodTools Over the summer months work continued for the CityFoodTools project in 7 city-regions around the world.

The CityFoodTools project aims to develop and test a toolkit of indicators and methods to describe, map and assess city region food systems. Working visits were held to the pilot cities of Quito, Ecuador by Henk Renting (RUAF) and Medellín, Colombia by Henk Renting and Guido Santini (FAO). As part of these working visits the provisional results of the first assessment phase, consisting of a mapping and evaluation of the regional food system based on secondary data sources - were presented and validated and where needed, complemented. Also multi-stakeholder workshops were organised to set priorities for the next phase of in-depth food assessment and to explore possible lines of policy action and strategy development. Multistakeholder workshops counted with the participation of representatives from relevant (municipal, regional and national) public administrations, civil society organisations, universities and research institutes. Additionally, in both cities field visits were organised to obtain a better idea of relevant aspects of the city region food system, in Medellín with a specific focus on preventing food waste and post-harvest losses and in Quito with a specific focus on food flows around the city. In Medellín, an additional achievement of the working visit was the strengthening of working relations with political responsibles and policy makers in the Municipality of Medellín and the regional government of Antioquia which had undergone important changes after elections. The CityFoodTools project is supported by the Daniel and Nina Carrasso Foundation and the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. For further information: h.renting@ruaf.org and guido.santini@fao.org.

Water, Land and Ecosystems RUAF collaborates with IWMI in the CGIAR Research Programme: Water Land and Ecosystems (WLE), that starts in 2017, and co-leads the Flagship on Rural Urban Linkages. On 14 June, WLE and UNESCO-IHE organised a roundtable for Dutch organisations, discussing the role of WLE and possible partnerships in sustainable agriculture in relation to issues as climate change, migration, population growth, urbanisation, food production, energy and natural resource management. The roundtable brought together representatives from WLE and other CGIAR research programs, UNESCO-IHE, Dutch organisations as well as guests from Europe for a dialogue on the topic of sustainability and agriculture. For more information, contact Rene van Veenhuizen, or read a blog post here.

New RUAF publications RUAF in WASH Alliance International: Three factsheets online In 2016, RUAF continued to collaborate as a WAI partner in Nepal, Bangladesh and Ghana with local partners on safe and productive use of waste and wastewater for urban and peri-urban agriculture. Three fact sheets have been produced, and another three will be published in the next months.

Please visit the RUAF website for the following fact sheets: • Integrated School WASH in Surkhet, Nepal • Monitoring sustainability of safe and productive use for urban and periurban agriculture • Safe and productive use of waste for urban and periurban agriculture - RUAF experiences in WASH

THE MSP GUIDE How to design and facilitate multi-stakeholder partnerships.

By: Herman Brouwer and Jim Woodhill with Minu Hemmati, Karén Verhoosel and Simone van Vugt This guide, published by CDI Wageningen integrates practical knowledge with theoretical foundations and principles. While practical facilitation methods and tools are essential, it is even more important to be able to design processes around the underlying dynamics of human systems, power relations, conflict, and teamwork.

The book draws on diverse schools of thought to offer facilitators and stakeholders in partnerships a set of principles and conceptual models to help inspire creative and critical processes of change.

Photo by Henk Renting

RUAF Update | October 2016

Urban Agriculture Magazine 31: Inclusive Use of Urban Space Urban agriculture and food systems are fast gaining the attention of planners and policy makers across the global south and north. A number of cities and regions are developing and implementing food systems plans and policies. While this emerging planning and policy attention is laudable, it must build on decades of community-led efforts to rebuild urban agriculture and community food systems. Failure to build on these on-the ground practices run the risk of developing policy that is uninformed and disconnected from the lived experiences of people in communities. This magazine explores the issue of community engagement in (urban) food policy and planning through case studies across the globe. A total of 17 articles explore the, formal and informal, role of community in urban food policy and planning, innovative planning practices and participatory policy development. The complete magazine or separate articles can be downloaded from the RUAF website.

Vulnerability Analysis of Urban Agriculture Projects: A Case Study of Community and Entrepreneurial Gardens in the Netherlands and Switzerland

By Ladina Knapp, Esther Veen, Henk Renting, Johannes S.C. Wiskerke and Jeroen C.J. Groot Small-scale bottom-up urban agriculture initiatives have a large potential to improve the quality of life in cities through their impact on ecological and social processes. However, it is unclear which criteria determine their successful establishment and continuity. We assessed these criteria for 29 projects in the Netherlands and Switzerland using a vulnerability analysis framework. Full text available in the Urban Agriculture and Regional Food Systems Journal (former Sitopolis).

City Region Food Systems and Food Waste Management: Linking urban and rural areas for sustainable and resilient development This publication, by GIZ, RUAF and FAO and funded by GIZ, documents 13 case studies from city regions around the world which are developing City Region Food System (CRFS) projects, programmes, and policies, including those related to the prevention, reduction and management of food waste.

The report furthermore provides lessons learned from the case studies for sustainable development of CRFS and offers a large number of strategies and tools that can be applied by city regions around the world, including the promotion of (peri) urban agriculture, preservation of agricultural land areas and watersheds through land use planning and zoning, development of food distribution and social protection programmes for vulnerable groups, support for short supply chains and local procurement of food, and promotion of food waste prevention, reduction and management, as well as the recovery and redistribution of safe and nutritious food for human consumption.

The 596 Acres team labelling lots in Weeksville, Brooklyn in August 2014.

Photo by Murray Cox. Sign design by Partner & Partners

Upcoming events FOOD 2030: Research & Innovation for Tomorrow's Nutrition & Food Systems 12-13 October 2016, Brussels, Belgium FOOD 2030 will explore what is needed to transform and future-proof our food systems to be sustainable, resilient, competitive, diverse, responsible and performant in their provision of accessible, healthy and sustainable food and diets for all. Furthermore, it will investigate how research and innovation systems can be scaledup. RUAF will participate in the 'Food Village'; an exhibition which will showcase innovative research projects, start-ups, selected cities and regions with their prototypes, products and food related initiatives. For more information click here.

Past events

World Humanitarian Summit

Upcoming events Photo by René van Veenhuizen

The first World Humanitarian Summit was held in Istanbul on 23 and 24 May 2016 and brought together governments, humanitarian organisations, people affected by humanitarian crises and new partners including the private sector to propose solutions to our most pressing challenges and set an agenda to keep humanitarian action fit for the future.

German Habitat Forum The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the federal state of Berlin hosted the German Habitat Forum in Berlin from 1-2 June 2016. RUAF participated in a session that brought forward the importance for cities to strengthen rural-urban linkages and support food security. The Berlin Recommendations can be accessed here and the conference proceedings here.

Urban Management Tools for Climate Change As in the past three years, RUAF contributed to this course (13 June - 1 July) of the International Institute of Urban Management (IHS) of the Erasmus University of Rotterdam in collaboration with UN Habtitat. RUAF gave a lecture on the role of urban and peri-urban agriculture in climate change adaptation and mitigation. More information on this course in 2017.

Food Security in an Urbanising Society From 5-16 September 2016, Wageningen University, CDI and Rural Sociology, in collaboration with RUAF organised for the second time, this two-week course in Wageningen in the Netherlands. 20 participants from various countries from Africa and Asia. The course focused on City Region Food Systems, urban-rural linkages, and on the multiple functions of urban and peri-urban agriculture. It is possible to apply for a NUFFIC fellowship.

Click here for more information on this course, and in due time on the organisation of this course in 2017.

EIP-AGRI Workshop Cities and Food – Connecting Consumers and Producers On 21-22 September, RUAF participated in this workshop aimed at building innovative food systems and supply chains which improve connecting producers with consumers. The aim was to look at it from the perspective of the farmer as well as from the perspective of the city. The workshop was organised by the European Commission in kind cooperation with representatives from the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFFP) and the Polish Environmental Partnership Foundation. For more information click here and presentations can be found here.

RUAF Foundation is a global partnership on sustainable urban agriculture and food systems. Since 1999, RUAF has supported local and sub-national governments, urban producer organisations, NGOs, CBOs, research centres and other stakeholders with training, technical assistance, action-research and policy advice in various related areas. RUAF is a not-for-profit organisation registered in the Netherlands. For more information: www.ruaf.org.

The RUAF Update is the newsletter from RUAF Foundation. To subscribe: ruaf-news-on@ruaf.org, to unsubscribe: ruaf-news-off@ruaf.org.

You can contact us for more information at info@ruaf.org.

Milan Urban Food Policy Pact Annual Gathering and Mayors Summit 13-14 October, FAO headquarters, Rome On the occasion of the World Food Day, the first anniversary of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact will be celebrated. RUAF was engaged in the development and writing of the MIlan Pact and all RUAF member cities have signed the Pact. The RUAF secretariat this year cannot be present due to overlap with Habitat3 events in Quito, but the Mayor of RUAF member Quito will address the Mayor Summit through a video message. Additionally RUAF member Ghent municipality will be represented as well as pilot cities in the RUAF/FAO CRFS assessment programme Colombo, Lusaka (both with Mayors), Medellín and Utrecht will be present. For more information click here.

Habitat3 Conference 17-20 October 2016, Quito, Ecuador The United Nations conference will be the first time in 20 years that the international community, led by national governments, has collectively taken stock of fast-changing urban trends and the ways in which these patterns are impacting on human development, environmental well-being, and civic and governance systems worldwide. See previous page for more details of RUAF activities.

Resilient Cities 2017 4-6 May 2017, Bonn, Germany Convened by ICLEI and hosted by the City of Bonn, Resilient Cities is the global meeting point for exchange of best practices in urban resilience and adaptation to climate change. For more information click here.

Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture 9-10 May 2007, Utrecht, The Netherlands The Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture is the world’s largest dedicated expo of sustainable agriculture innovations. Bringing together 7,000 stakeholders along the value chain from Europe and the emerging markets of Africa and Asia, GFIA Europe is the region’s only exhibition and conference dedicated to sustainable technologies across all types of food production. Click here for more information.