Parallel Event

"Food for Cities"
6/05/01
NY UN Conference Room
3 11.00-13.00pm
PRESENTATION: FOOD SECURITY, URBAN AGRICULTURE, URBAN MANAGEMENT
BY YVES CABANNES

1. Personal presentation
Yves Cabannes, a Frenchman, is currently Regional Coordinator of the UNCHS/UNDP Urban Management Programme, Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Quito, Ecuador. Prior to joining the UMP in 1997, he worked in Brazil, with the NGO Cearah-Periferia and GRET in Fortaleza, working with extremely poor communities (housing, income-generating activities), local government and social movements. Yves is an economist, planner and urban specialist, having completed studies to doctoral level in Paris. He has worked in several Asian, Arab and African countries, as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean, and has particular experience and interest in public policy, low cost housing, appropriate technology, credit community development and local power. He has been and continues to be a consultant to the United Nations, European Union and other international organisations, visiting post-graduate lecturer in various European and Latin American universities, and researcher in habitat - related issues.

2. Synopsis of the presentation
Presentation" Food security, urban agriculture and urban management".
The presentation tackles the current challenges for urban management, and stresses that in the actual context of globalisation and decentralisation the access to food for poorer populations is being reduced and that the municipal territory has become the new basis for intervention and planning. Therefore it is necessary to link food security and urban agriculture to municipal land use management. Different city types and land areas are identified and their characteristics discussed. A first framework is presented for the identification of land use and socio-economic development policies, that support change, protection, stimulation or intensification of land use for production, transformation and commercialisation of agricultural goods.

3. the video "Urban Agriculture in El Panecillo" will be presented at 1.00pm in Studio4