Intents

The Charter of Intents (Agenda) is the official document that describes the history of the REALSAN network, its vision, objectives and how it functions.

HISTORY

This network is the result of the project co-funded by the European Commission entitled “The role of local authorities in building a common work agenda for North/South food security: inputs from Europe and Central America”, which has the Municipality of Milan as its project leader.

NETWORK VISION

Food and nutrition security and the right to food are objectives to which the whole international community is committed. The legal aspect of the right to food calls for coherent effective political action. Local authorities and actors play a strategic role in the entire process as they are key subjects for guaranteeing social cohesion within their territories, for facilitating institutionalisation of good practices identified locally, given their capacity to act as a hub between global, regional and national policies with local impact.

What is needed to achieve these goals is strategic capitalisation of knowhow, exchange of experiences and development of study methods to inform and direct public policies at all levels. This moves hand in hand with development of the human resources indispensable for implementing suitable production practices (organic farming), coherent lifestyles and forms of cooperation from local (family, community) to global.

THE NETWORK INTENDS TO:

• Help create coherence between international cooperation strategies, policies (both local and international) that impact the FNS and practices and experiences put in place locally, both in Europe and in CA, which encourage sustainable inclusive local development.
• Work towards capillary involvement of local authorities, OSC, NGO, private actors and international bodies in decentralised and international cooperation paths between Europe and Central America. Activities will concentrate on the different sectors that impact definition of FNS policies, such as: management of water, natural resources, waste; organic farming, adaption to climate change and local production chains, local participatory development and international cooperation.
• Enhance the role of Local Authorities as a vehicle for the institutionalisation of experiences and paths that will arise from work by the network.
• Create understanding on a European and Central American level and raise awareness about FNS issues to promote sustainable lifestyles and fairer consumption models that enhance local markets and resources.
• Activate support and interest in the fight against poverty and to promote fairer relationships between North and South.
• Facilitate gradual institutionalisation of policy-making processes focused on the inclusiveness of FNS policies in the statutes of local authorities in the network.

HOW THE NETWORK WORKS

The REALSAN network is organised in a flexible manner to guarantee that membership process and requests for information and support are as simple as possible. Above all, it addresses local authorities and all the actors interested in cooperating and collaborating, with a view to decentralised cooperation, putting in place actions focused in achieving pro FNS results.

A coordination group has been set up within the REALSAN network, with the task of defining and directing activities by members within the FNS context. The values that REALSAN has set itself are stimulation of collaboration between members and promotion of exchanges between Europe and Central America, with the added aim of including new members.

Signing of this agenda represents official membership of the network.