FoodCLIC brings urban food policy insights to Latin America
At the end of October 2025, Bogotá hosted UN-Habitat’s annual World Cities Day. In partnership with the Secretaría Distrital de Desarrollo Económico (SDDE), FoodCLIC and Metropolis brought the conversation on metropolitan action for healthy food systems to the international stage through the Metropolitan Action for Healthy Food Environments roundtable. More than 100 participants attended to hear from urban food policy experts representing Belo Horizonte, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Cartagena, Montevideo, Rosario, and Tbilisi. The roundtable built on months of preparatory work through the Metropolis Solutions Lab, the network’s approach to international policy exchange.
In September and October, the expert panelists participated in a programme combining online sessions with in-person engagement in Bogotá. These sessions drew directly on FoodCLIC’s CLIC framework - co-benefits, linkages, inclusion, and connectivities - a practical way to help cities design food policies that create multiple benefits for communities. They also built on insights emerging from its European Living Labs (pilot cities testing new approaches), allowing participants to engage with methodologies currently being tested in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, Cascais, and Capannori. This created a rich space for reflection, adaptation, and peer learning, with Tbilisi and Wroclaw contributing as FoodCLIC Broadening Cities (cities joining the project’s learning activities).
The in-person component provided practical, hands-on experience. Over two days, Solutions Lab participants visited Corabastos (Bogotá’s central wholesale food market), Plataforma Los Luceros (a local food distribution hub), a community kitchen, a neighbourhood market, and an urban farm. These site visits ensured that lessons from the online sessions were grounded in real-world initiatives in Latin America. The combination of focused engagement and broader participation enabled cities to exchange experiences, observe practical examples, and explore the adaptation of solutions to local contexts. This process also reflected Metropolis’ mission to facilitate cooperation and mutual learning among metropolitan governments, providing a concrete space for members to share solutions and address common challenges.
The Metropolitan Action for Healthy Food Environments roundtable illustrates how metropolitan collaboration can integrate peer learning, practical experience, and regional visibility. Through the Metropolis Solutions Lab and the World Cities Day session, Latin American cities advanced discussions on building healthy, equitable, and sustainable food systems in their own contexts, while also connecting local innovation in Bogotá to the FoodCLIC methodology.
This article was published by Kaitlin Cockerham from FoodCLIC network partner Metropolis
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FOODCLIC. We are connecting people, food, policy & places.
FoodCLIC is a four-year project funded by the EU. The project runs from September 2022 to February 2027. The acronym FoodCLIC stands for 'integrated urban FOOD policies – developing sustainability Co-benefits, spatial Linkages, social Inclusion and sectoral Connections to transform food systems in city-regions
