4cities4dev

The 4Cities4Dev project, co-financed by the European Union, was formed by the collaborative efforts of four European cities – Turin, which acts as the project leader, Tours, Bilbao, and Riga – along with Slow Food.

The project brings together the role of the cities, as active players in local politics and decentralized cooperation, with Slow Food’s approach, which is based on the involvement of food communities, citizens, and consumers.

4Cities4Dev revolves around the experience of Slow Food’s food communities: groups of people who produce, process, and distribute high-quality, sustainable food, while conserving strong social, economic, and historical ties to their territories.

The four European cities “adopt” seven food communities that are found in Senegal, Mauritania, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Kenya, Mali, and the Ivory Coast.

“Adopting” a food community means allowing the European cities to get to know these realities from up close, with the support of Slow Food’s work and the launching of institutional relationships among the partner cities, the food communities, and the local authorities.

The objective of supporting the food communities is to increase the awareness, on the part of European cities, of responsible consumption and the consequences of their own personal eating habits. The fight against poverty requires that both individuals and local institutions take on responsible and sober behavior.

Objectives: to mobilize greater public support for action against poverty, targeting EU citizens in order to make them more aware, responsible and active vis-à-vis food security policy and sustainable development in the development co-operation context.

Results:

– Evidence of effectiveness of food communities model through the assessment of the achieved results;

– Possibility to apply widely and effectively food communities model in co-operation with EU LAs comparing it with other models or consolidated development cooperation practices (by other NGOs, high level training institutes and local authorities);

– Improvement of the matching between supply and demand of development co-operation through provision to LAs in the EU of structured opportunities to co-operate with communities in partner countries;

– Improvement of partner-cities policies to favour urban-rural relationship and co-operation and to

support change in consumption/production patterns;

– Improvement of skills and knowledge to approach and realize development cooperation

projects in the food area;

– Increased networking and cooperation among municipalities thanks to the involvement of

cities and LAs networks

EU citizens made aware about necessity to act in developing countries to safeguard the whole planet (climate change, migration, terrorism);

– EU citizens made aware about good, clean and fair food approach in development co- operation context;

– EU citizens attitude and behaviour as consumers is changed (sustainable consumption patterns);

– Young generations are made aware of the necessity and mechanisms of development co- operation

Target: European citizens and consumers, Youths, LAs, Media, Volunteers and activists

Website: https://www.4cities4dev.eu/

Project Closed/Ongoing: closed

Partners: Torino, Bilbao, Tours, Riga, Slow Food