Food Wave, Monitoring the project that promotes sustainable food consumption among young Europeans

Title Food Wave – Empowering Urban Youth for Climate Action

Location Europe

Duration 2020 -2024

Project Leader Comune di Milano

Partners ActionAid Italia, ACRA, Mani Tese 

Project Network 17 cities, 4 municipal agencies and 8 civil society organisations closely linked to the cities. C40, the international network of cities committed to combating climate change, is an associate partner in the project.

Project partners are: the city of Turin (Italy), Frankfurt (Germany), Warsaw (Poland), London (United Kingdom), Zagreb (Croatia), Sofia (Bulgaria), Madrid (Spain), Murcia (Spain), Malmö (Sweden), Almere (Netherland), San Paolo (Brazil), Bruges (Belgium), Molenbeek (Brussels, Belgium), Nea Smyrni (Athens, Greece), Pest (Hungary), Action Aid Italia (Italy), Mani Tese (Italy), Fondazione Acra (Italy), CLLD Network of Lisbon (Portugal), Climate Agency Agency of Manchester (United Kingdom), Metropolitan agency of Brazov (Romania), ALDA (France), Risteco (France), Alianza por la Solidaridad (Spain), BJCEM – Biennale des Jeunes Créateurs d’Europe et de la Méditerranée (Belgium),Erasmus Student Network (Belgium), Action Aid Hellas (Greece), Wcycle Institute of Maribor (Slovenia). The association Global Shapers (Italy) is involved as third part in this project.

Funidng Food Wave is co-financed bu the European Union under the Programme DEAR

 

 

Context

The global food production and consumption system produces about 33% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and consumes 70% of fresh water. In addition, the increasingly intensive use of land for crops is one of the main factors in the loss of biodiversity. In the face of this, while diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular problems due to poor dietary habits are spreading, millions of people lack secure access to food and suffer from malnutrition or undernourishment.

Achieving a sustainable global food system would help mitigate the effects of consumption on climate change and create a production system in which everyone has a fair livelihood.

The Food Wave project aims to raise awareness among the European population aged 16-35 about the importance of sustainable food production and consumption practices at urban level. By boosting their activism and giving them the tools to influence institutional decisions, the boys and girls involved in the project will be able to lead the global transition towards a more sustainable food system by 2030.

In fact, the project envisages the development of awareness-raising activities and public involvement through

  • co-creation of information materials for the implementation of dissemination and mobilisation campaigns
  • online and offline youth involvement actions
  • training courses for young activists
  • activities targeting young people from peripheral urban neighbourhoods
  • micro-financing for small associations and youth organisations
  • development of online and offline discussion platforms
  • youth exchanges between northern and southern countries
  • creation of food influencer networks
  • a pan-European campaign through digital channels
  • European Union Film Festivals
  • high-level events and collaboration with existing youth participation initiatives
  • visual art competitions.

 

 

General Objective

Food Wave aims to reach at least 15 million young people through a web platform and digital campaign, supported by an international network of influencers. In addition, the project foresees the realisation of specific research and studies on food and climate change and the involvement of over 3,000 young people through online and offline activities including activism schools, discussion forums, international exchanges, street actions, art competitions and film festivals.

The M&E and Impact Assessment and Inclusive Development Units were involved to conduct the monitoring of the project’s numerous awareness-raising, participation and communication activities.

 

Our contribution

The structure of the project is set up according to an “hourglass” logic, with the organisation and implementation of three interconnected pillars divided into 13 actions. The three pillars are

  • “Awareness” aimed at creating an extensive information and training programme (formal and non-formal) for young people.
  • “Engagement” with the aim of actively involving a smaller number of interested young people through winter or summer schools, workshops especially for young people living in peripheral areas, support of youth organisations and youth exchanges between the countries of the North and the South
  • Construction of a pan-European awareness-raising campaign which is the third pillar.

The M&E and Impact Assessment and Inclusive Development Units are working on structuring an information collection system that can trace the activation pathway experienced by the activists the project manages to intercept. To achieve this, the research team has developed a set of tools tailored to individual activities and trained partners in their use. Finally, ARCO supported the City of Milan in the overall reporting action by structuring a dialogue between qualitative and financial monitoring.

Food wave sustainabl consumption youth consumo sotenibile cibo monitoraggio monitoring

Read more on our M&E and Impact Evaluation Unit