How to achieve a resilient and sustainable food supply in the near future? How to best support the development of sustainable cities and food systems? The "City-Region Food System and Sustainable Urban Development", a half day conference organized by the FAO and the International Sustainability Unit of the Prince of Wales Charities, gave the opportunity for participants and different stakeholders to debate about these questions and identify viable steps towards a sustainable city-region food system.

UNCDF's panelist, Mrs. Christel Alvergne, presented how her team is supporting local governments in LDCs in their endeavor to improve food security. Being aware that achieving food security goes far beyond food production and distribution, Mrs. Alvergne explained how UNCDF combines different approaches from its long-standing experience in implementing multi-stakeholder programmes in a number of African countries, e.g. Benin, Burundi, Mali, Mozambique and Niger. Using a specific methodology to help local governments, civil society and the private sector to work together and articulate the production and consumption of food at local level in a systemic way, UNCDF aims to fill the missing intersectoral linkages in the Local Food Systems (LFS). Using its expertise in local development finance, UNCDF's approach is set to enable increased public and public-private investments designed to strengthen the Local Food Systems.

The participants of the "City-Region Food System and Sustainable Urban Development" session emphasized the importance to promote the Local Food System Approach ("City Region Food System") and adopted a call for global action for the city region food systems and sustainable urbanization to be recognized as strategic subjects on the Post-2015 Agenda, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Hyogo Framework for Action, etc. A consortium of key stakeholders, including UN agencies (Un Habitat, IFAD, FAO, UNDP, UNCDF), has been created to position the Local Food System Approach on the Post-2015 Agenda and Habitat III.

The session concluded with a video statement from the UN Special rapporteur on the Right to Food.