EXPERIENCES

In 2013, the City of Ghent launched ‘Gent en Garde’, a food policy that includes five strategic goals to pave the way for a sustainable food system for Ghent. These goals were decided upon based on various stakeholder discussions, input from the city administration and political agreement.

The five strategic goals set are the following:

1. A shorter, more visible food chain
2. More sustainable food production and consumption
3. The creation of more social added value for food initiatives
4. Reduce food waste
5. Optimum reuse of food waste as raw materials

Inspired by a similar approach in Bristol and Toronto, the City of Ghent also set up a ‘food council’. The Gent en Garde food policy council consists of about 25 members from various sectors, i.e. agriculture, associations, knowledge institutions and commerce. The total group comes together 3 times a year.

Main facilitating factors

• Synergies with other city departments. The food policy only has had limited dedicated funds. But through building synergies with other domains, such as poverty reduction, developing urban planning, activating temporary spaces, etc. a lot of initiatives have been made possible.
• International cooperation on food.

Lessons learned and recommendations:

• Political engagement is key. The strategic goals were politically approved and gave us the mandate to build operational actions linking into those goals.
• Participation is key. Listening to stakeholders involved for every action or initiative will define the success of the initiative that follows.
• Time is more important than budget. Yes, you need money. But to get this process started, you need time more than anything. Time to have someone getting to know the stakeholders, building bridges amongst them, feeding input into the different organisations and city departments involved, getting political buy-in, etc.
• Start with quick win-win opportunities. Food is a grateful topic to bring people together. Use this strength to have other city policies include this topic.
• It takes time to build a food policy council that takes up ownership. After 3 years of food policy council work, we have reached a turning point where members of the council take real ownership of the food policy. They wrote the operational goals themselves, chose their working groups, spread the message, bring people together, host working groups, etc. They are not yet fully ready to function with us facilitating parts of the process, but big steps have been taken so far.

Source: https://www.ruaf.org/sites/default/files/European%20case%20studies%20on%20governance%20of%20territorial%20food%20systems%20Gouter-RUAF%20final.pdf