In order to generate significant action and measurable progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has convened a UN Food Systems Summit (FSS) to raise global awareness and shape global commitments that can transform food systems to resolve hunger, reduce diet-related diseases and restore planetary health.

The FSS secretariat identified five Action Tracks: 1) Ensuring access to safe and nutritious food, 2) Shifting to sustainable consumption patterns, 3) Boosting nature-positive production, 4) Advancing equitable livelihoods, and 5) Building resilience. A territorial approach to sustainable food systems is essential to governance and planning of food systems and cuts across, can contribute to, and brings together the different action tracks.

This issue paper seeks to provide inputs to the FSS Secretariat and Action Tracks leadership, so that territorial approaches are recognized and duly addressed in food systems transformation to facilitate implementation and ensure sustainability in the long term. It aims to help understand and lift the role of territorial governance and to stress the importance of resilient and equitable territorial food systems on the policy agenda.

The paper recalls the relevance of bioregional approaches for nature-based solutions considering agroecological principles1 as well as the knowledge behind indigenous food systems, the increasing role of municipal and local governments in operationalizing the SDG agenda and the importance of functional urban-rural linkages for integrated territorial development - for example, by enhancing policies on local food procurement. A food systems approach provides an integrating entry point as it brings together natural resources management (and in particular biodiversity and climate change) and food production, culture, health and social justice.

The revitalization of local economies and the role of small and intermediary cities and their surrounding territories are essential to sustainable development and crisis management. This narrative has recently been confirmed by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and should be at the heart of recovery, as well as prevention and management of future compound crises.