The purpose of this Network is to:

• Raise awareness on resilient city-region food systems and urban and peri-urban agriculture.
• Create an advocacy platform for cities to gain political recognition and support from national governments and international support organizations.
• Provide information to cities around the world, stimulate exchange of experiences, identify and disseminate important lessons, good practices, practical guidelines and toolkits.
• Provide cities with training and technical and policy assistance and guidance in managing their food systems and in engineering resilience.
• Facilitate cooperation between cities worldwide and between local governments and civil society in this important policy area.

Activities undertaken by the Network will include, amongst others:

• Training as well as technical assistance and policy advice on the topics of food system assessment and planning, food policy formulation and monitoring, urban and peri-urban agriculture, and other related topics of interest.

• Development and dissemination of fact sheets, business models, guidelines and tools in hard-copy and in an online library. This will include a section on national and municipal policies on urban agriculture and city-region food systems and reports on their impacts plus a compendium with information and examples of business models and prototypes for sustainable urban and peri-urban agriculture. In addition, guidelines and toolkits will be made available on food system analyses, food flows and footprint analyses, multi -stakeholder food systems planning, establishing food councils, and designing municipal food strategies.

• A City hub where cities can present online their food policies and programs, including their components and results.

• A Community of Practice where practitioners can share experiences on food system analysis as well as on the planning and design of city food strategies.

• The organization of inter-city exchanges and learning.

• Awareness raising and lobbying at international events.