Workshop at the World Resources Forum 2017 // Rural Urban Nexus – Governance for Sustainable Land Use through City Region Food Strategies
This workshop aims to: Provide an overview of relevant aspects of the rural-urban nexus and the need for integrated development and the opportunities this provides for resource efficient land use; explore and discuss implications of such an integrated perspective towards local governance, policy and research needs with the development of urban food strategies as an example; look in-depth at city region food systems and their resource saving potentials as one applied nexus case.
Where and when
At the World Resources Forum 2017
Geneva, Switzerland
25 Oct 2017
11am - 1pm
Background
Resource efficient land use and sustainable urban development are both high on the international, European and regional political agenda. However, both topics are still largely discussed separately from each other and silo thinking prevails. Against the background of a rapidly increasing number of people living in cities and the implications this has on land use an integrated perspective is now needed more than ever.
Challenges and opportunities of an integrated territorial development lie in the reduction of impacts resulting from additional land use for buildings and infrastructure, the establishment of regional resource and nutrient cycles, provision of resources for growing cities and improvement of resilience.
A particular powerful content area that recently receives rising attention in many regions worldwide is the development of city-region-food-systems. Food also serves as a “silo buster” to build coalitions around and to find integrated solutions and new actor coalitions for rural-urban-development. It also has the chance to contribute to various SDGs (SDG 2 on land use, 11 on sustainable cities and rural urban linkages, 12 for food waste reduction and sustainable consumption, 15 to avoid land degradation and environmental protection – to name the most relevant).
Organisers
Source: WRI conference website