Six cities have committed to Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)’s launched “green cities” programme of action for Africa.
The aim of the Green Cities Action Programme is to scale up rapid action measures to build resilience in large, medium and small cities around the world while creating the conditions for food and nutrition security for their populations. The programme also aims to ensure an enabling environment with more integrated food production and distribution systems that benefit people and farmers.
New solutions
According to FAO, 55% of the world’s population now lives in cities, and this figure is expected to reach 68% by 2050. A large proportion of these city dwellers live in low-income countries, particularly in Africa and Asia. Yet cities offer great economic opportunities. At the same time, these cities can be home to high levels of poverty and account for a significant share of natural resource use (water, energy, etc.), greenhouse gas emissions and food consumption.
The cities signed up for the programme include; Praia in Cape Verde Tananarive in Madagascar, Quelimane in Mozambique and Kigali in Rwanda. These cities will begin the pilot phase of the programme, which is intended to involve 1,000 cities worldwide by 2030. The Kenyan cities of Nairobi and Kisumu have been selected to lead the pilot phase of the programme.
To implement the programme, FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu is calling on committed cities and mayors to engage local innovators, entrepreneurs and youth to come up with new solutions, digital technologies, climate-smart practices and strategies to create green jobs and enrich the links between urban settlements and their rural environment.
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