Through engaging with diverse experiences across Europe, this project sought to increase knowledge and build capacity for European civil-society organizations and the local authorities they collaborate with. It achieved this by generating information, insights, methodologies, and tools to enhance their engagement with democratic decision-making, thereby accelerating the transition towards sustainable food systems and realizing the Right to Food and Nutrition at multiple levels. The specific objectives include: 1) Increase knowledge and understanding of different methodologies, practices, and policies enabling participatory governance at local level and more rights-based sustainable food systems through co-construction of knowledge with local authorities and civil-society organizations; 2) Expand and strengthen the capacities of civil-society organizations and social movements, to engage with local institutional bodies and policy frameworks and become catalyzers of food system transformation; 3) Generate learning spaces for civil society organizations to analyze European regional strategies and policy spaces in order to foster alignment between local sustainable food systems processes and EU frameworks.
The local / sub-national space is a key area for more participatory approaches to food policy making, which can work to ensure the content of the policies is aligned with the needs of the community, as well as a greater potential center the experiences of marginalized groups. Local food system initiatives which are often working alongside local authorities, as the closest spaces of democracy for communities, are exemplary of reflexive learning and hold a high potential to put human rights principles into practice. The right to food community in Europe lacks materials which can support more learning on policies and processes to transform food systems in the direction of human rights, which works across sectors and also across levels of governance. This project worked to generate materials and practices which can support continued and ongoing analysis and interventions towards more robust, resilient, and human rights-based local food systems policies. Innovation and experimentation from the bottom-up can fuel the need to transform food systems at different levels, aligning actions at all levels to address sustainability challenges, and enable rights-based food systems across different European contexts.