Coalition to Promote Territorial Food Systems Governance

Food systems governance comprises complex, overlapping, multi-sector, jurisdictional, and stakeholder forms of decision-making, with varying degrees of autonomy, participation, coordination, competition, and cooperation. Governments have a key role to play. According to the 2021 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report, more than three-quarters of countries reported having multisectoral mechanisms to coordinate nutrition work – most commonly involving health, agriculture and education. However, in several countries food systems governance is not inclusive, still fragmented, sectorially siloed and is not coherently linked with other decision making levels (local and supra- national). Recent territorial approaches for food systems can support building and adequate institutional multi-level governance framework by bringing together actors from different spatial levels, sectors and institutions to formaly work in an aligned and coordinated way. Research and field action have generated an expanding evidence base, and experienced practitioners. Effective models have also cropped up all around the world and knowledge can be exchanged involving governments and other relevant stakeholders. This is the case of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) member States that managed to design and implement a multi-level food system governance architecture from the local to the global level. The existence of a global critical mass of actors such as Territorial Perspective for Development (TP4D) to finally support the institutionalization of food systems territorial governance is now more important.