What’s on the menu? A global assessment of MUFPP signatory cities’ food strategies

Abstract

Increased recognition of the persistent and interconnected nature of food system challenges resulted in the creation of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) in 2015. MUFPP signatory cities commit themselves to contribute to a better functioning food system by adopting integrated approaches. This study assesses the number of MUFPP cities that have developed food strategies and the choices local policymakers make in the design of these strategies. The results show surprising similarities between cities across regions in terms of goals and instruments. At the same time, local governments clearly put different emphases and seem to vary in policy styles.

Overcoming the dependent variable problem in studying food policy

“…Policy integration refers to the extent to which a cross-cutting problem, here the overall functioning of or specific challenges within the food system, is addressed in a more or less holistic manner by a governance system's policy configuration (cf. Candel and Biesbroek 2016). Whereas various ways of operationalising policy integration exist (see also: Jordan and Lenschow 2010; Cejudo and Michel 2017; Tosun and Lang 2017), all of these share an interest in the coherence of policy goals and the consistency of instruments.…”

“…E.g., establishing a desk to assist with subsidy applications Variety of organisations with food-related purposes being established or redesigned. E.g., establishing a nutrition agency with research institutions and information campaign units (Nilsson et al 2012) or a proximity-to-target measure (Candel and Biesbroek 2016), in which the existing constellation of goals and instruments is compared to a pre-developed ideal type. In addition, Candel and Biesbroek (2018) developed various proxy-indicators in their assessment of policy integration in the European Union governance of global food security.…”

“…However, the development of such a comparative research agenda is hampered by what we refer to as the dependent variable problem of food policy research. As governments face varying food system challenges and have different priorities and preferred policy styles, there are considerable differences in the form and scope existing food policies take (e.g., Calori and Magarini 2015;De Cunto et al 2017;Candel 2019). As we will show in Section 2, existing food policy conceptualisations are not sufficiently developed to take stock of this diversity, resulting in lack of clarity about and indistinctness of the nature and boundaries of the phenomenon that is being studied or compared (i.e.…”

Social justice-oriented narratives in European urban food strategies: Bringing forward redistribution, recognition and representation

“…The recent articles of Filippini et al (2019) (sample of 14 European and 18 non-European cities), Sonnino et al (2019) (sample of 34 European cities and 9 non-European cities) and Candel (2020) (sample of 19 European cities and 21 non-European cities) form exceptions to this pattern, albeit global in focus, not European. These studies demonstrate how extensive document analyses can provide insights into the scope (range of objectives), degree of targeting (specificity of the policy goals) and substantiality (selection of policy instruments) of UFSs (Candel 2020). Moreover, document analyses of UFSs can demonstrate how urban food governance is interpreted, justified and (planned to be) implemented by policy makers and other stakeholders (Sonnino et al 2019).…”

“…To align their various food governance efforts, cities often develop urban food strategies (UFSs). UFSs are defined here as comprehensive vision documents which outline desirable urban foodscapes for the future, connect and create synergies between different policy domains and objectives and map existing, planned and recommended initiatives, measures and courses of action that are (in)directly linked to food in the city (Candel 2020;Ilieva 2017;Mansfield and Mendes 2013;Sonnino 2016;Wiskerke 2009).…”