A atuação das cidades na governança alimentar internacional: limites e possibilidades a partir do Pacto de Milão sobre política de alimentação urbana

Abstract

Global society is undergoing a process of urbanization, in which most of its population is already living in cities. Likewise, hunger is still a recurring problem, but it has been joined by other understandings such as food (in)security at various levels and, more recently, the issue of malnutrition resulting from the consumption of poorly nutritious food. Realizing that the transformation of this reality must involve the construction of efficient, adequate and territorialized food systems from a social, economic and environmental perspective, international cooperation has called for the action of local governments, in the context of cities. In this context, organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations have built foundations to encourage regions, countries and their entities to develop public food policies with a collective future in mind. Thus, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact emerged in 2015 with the aim of bringing together global cities so that they can collectively exchange information, disseminate policies and leverage the development of food systems. This paper therefore focuses on the study of the Pact as a working tool for decentralized international cooperation and the role of local governments in the governance of food systems. Methodologically, the analysis was chosen based on documentary and bibliographical research, to answer the question "what are the limitations of food governance that give rise to the role of local governments and how does the MUFPP position itself in this context?". The results of the research, presented in the discussion, show the challenges in food governance under the action of local governments and the difficulties of adapting the MUFPP monitoring structure, such as the substantial differences between the territories in which the governments are related, the limitations for evaluating and monitoring policies and the political nature of all the decisions that permeate the development of food systems.