LAUSR

The recent IPCC Climate Change and Land Report [1] lays out evidence of the need for urgent shifts in the global systems in light of climate change. This commentary reflects on Chapter 5, the Food Security chapter, from our perspective as researchers focused on urban food systems and non-communicable disease in Africa. Chapter 5 states that “transformational change will require integration of resilience and mitigation across all parts of the food system including production, supply chains, social aspects, and dietary choices” [1]. The report also argues that the current food system requires transformation to address the relatively high cost of nutritious foods, which is a contributing factor to obesity and non-communicable disease. Like the EAT-Lancet Commission report [2], the IPCC Climate Change and Land Report advocates for a diet that is both healthy for the individual and healthy for the planet. While largely framed in the report and the literature more broadly as aspatial, with an implied rural focus, we argue that changing diets in a way that preserves health of people and plant must incorporate an explicitly urban lens. Not only is the global population now predominantly urban, but many key functions of the food system operate within the jurisdictional boundaries of city governments. An opportunity for national and local governments to engage food security and food systems governance as urban issues arose with the endorsement of the New Urban Agenda at the UN General Assembly in 2016 [3]. This document identified food security and nutrition as a key urban challenge (Para 2) and a public good to be provided by cities (Para 13). It further identifies food as a basic service in the same category of more conventionally accepted basic urban services, such as housing, water, and sanitation (Para 34). Paragraph 123 calls for food system governance and planning at the urban and territorial scales. It is within this context that we argue for an explicitly urban lens to be brought to the IPCC’s call for food system transformation. For the African context, in which we work, there must be a reimagining of the urban development trajectory. Given the reality of large urban populations, climate change, food security, and NCDs must all be central to the urban policy agenda. Cities should no longer look on economic growth as their measure of successful governance, nor on job creation: in retrospect, this approach has served neither planet nor people. Rather, the success of urban policy must be measured by its ability to support health. In the context of climate change and burgeoning NCDs J Urban Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-020-00429-7