Breaking silos: How municipal collaboration drives food system change

Food is a powerful entry point for tackling some of today’s most pressing urban challenges. From climate mitigation to public health, social equity to economic resilience, food connects agendas that are often treated separately. This growing awareness is prompting cities to rethink how they can move toward more integrated governance. Within FoodCLIC, many city-regions are testing approaches that bring together municipal departments traditionally siloed from one another. By fostering internal cooperation, cities are unlocking more effective and coherent solutions to transform their food environments.

Building a shared vision in Aarhus

In the Aarhus City-region, Denmark, FoodCLIC helped align strategies in education, health, and procurement to create synergies around sustainable food environments. One concrete example is how food education is being embedded in schools: not just through classroom learning, but through coordinated efforts that link curricula, canteen services, and procurement policies. School canteens are being used as educational spaces where children learn about nutrition, sustainability, and the value of local produce. Meanwhile, procurement teams are working with education departments to source healthier, locally produced meals, reinforcing what students learn in class.

Cross-department workshops in Barcelona

In Barcelona, the Living Lab created a space to strengthen cooperation between departments through structured and participatory workshops. The sessions helped identify overlapping priorities and build a stronger understanding of how each department could contribute to common goals. Discussions between urban planners and health officers led to new ideas on how the built environment could better support food access and healthy living. Social services contributed insights on reaching vulnerable communities, while the education department highlighted the role of schools in promoting food literacy. This cross-departmental process is now informing real-life interventions in neighbourhoods of Fondo and Sant Cosme. Here, integrated food strategies are improving access, awareness, and local economic opportunities. Five interventions are ongoing:

1.  Community-based food literacy and inclusion for residents in vulnerable situations;

2.  Food retail and community kitchen offering healthy, affordable products;

3.  Soil recovery and community-led agroecology for restoring agricultural land;

4.  Youth inclusion in agriculture and livestock through training and mentoring by retirees;

5.  Community engagement in food system transformation through personalised action plans and support.

Pragmatic alignment in Lisbon

The Lisbon Metropolitan Area offers a pragmatic model for cross-department collaboration. There, the Living Lab team recognized that departments were already working on multiple food-related initiatives, from urban planning and mobility to social housing and environmental services. Rather than duplicate efforts, the team adapted the FoodCLIC methodology to align with and strengthen these existing collaborations. The interventions in Cabeço do Mouro and Adroana, two social housing developed under the Special Rehousing Programme (PER) in the early 2000s to provide public housing for resettled families, are a direct result of this approach. Departments responsible for planning, social inclusion, and sustainability came together to design responses that reflect the complex realities of these neighbourhoods. 

Lessons for local leaders

Food system transformation is often slowed by bureaucratic fragmentation. What FoodCLIC demonstrates is that fostering cross-departmental collaboration is not only feasible, but necessary to build coherent, long-lasting policies. For city leaders, this means:

• Appointing dedicated coordination bodies or food policy officers;
• Encouraging joint planning processes and shared monitoring frameworks;
• Recognizing food not as a sector, but as a cross-cutting issue that can unite agendas around health, equity, and sustainability;

Breaking silos is not just a managerial challenge, it’s a political opportunity to build stronger, more resilient urban food systems.

This blog was written by Matteo Bizzotto, Senior Officer of Global Communications at ICLEI World Secretariat, based on the FoodCLIC publication Synthesis of plans of the eight living labs with portfolios of real-life interventions

Publishing date: 4 February 2026