The integration of food into urban planning is a crucial and emerging topic.
Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) is located in the center of Kandy-Colombo-Galle urbanization belt, where it forms the largest Local Authority (LA) of Sri Lanka and one of the oldest in South Asia, established in 1865. Together with 12 other LAs, it forms part of the Colombo district, which is one of three districts (Colombo, Gamapaha and Kalutara) of Sri Lanka’s most populated Western Province, which hosts the largest part of the urbanization belt.
Food availability, access, stability and utilization are all part of the multi-dimensional nature of food security. The “availability” aspect, discussed here, refers to the availability of sufficient quantities of food of appropriate quality, supplied through domestic production or inputs.
In every region of the world, landscapes are being transformed. Rural people are migrating to urban centres in search of economic and social opportunities while city dwellers are becoming interested in producing their own food and moving outside the centres to be able to appreciate nature. These changes in lifestyles have implications for the food system and nutritional status of populations.
Urbanization is one of the key drivers of change in the world today. The world‟s urban population currently stands at around 3.5 billion. It will almost double to more than 6 billion by 2050. This is a challenge not only for urban areas but also for rural areas, because many people, especially the young, will migrate from rural areas to urban areas over this period. When addressing urbanization challenges, we are also addressing, directly or indirectly, rural and territorial development. What do we have to do to ensure people‟s access to good nutrition in cities?
In this issue, we discuss the Global Bioenergy Partnership and the important work it is undertaking - in collaboration with governments and international organizations - to establish sustainability indicators for bioenergy projects. We also report on the Food for the Cities Initiative, an integrative approach to coordinating FAO's activities in urban and peri-urban areas and sharing best practices with other international and civil society organizations. Finally, we introduce the new water report: Climate change, water and food security.
The report below contains the proceedings of the first workshop of a joint project by Zambia's Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAL), The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and The CGIAR programme on Climate Change, and Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) who are collaborating on developing and quantifying participatory scenario analysis under an EC funded project that will contribute to Zambia, having the tools, knowledge and capacities to adopt, advance, scale up and roll out solutions towards Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA).
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