Advocacy and Policy Change
Why is advocacy and policy change an important part of our work?
Food security is a complex issue. It touches all of us in some way and relates to our health, our environment, and our economies. It’s about building social justice and sustainability.
Food security is impacted by many different factors. Long-term, holistic, and systemic changes are needed. That’s why advocacy and policy change at multiple levels are important strategies and can be found at the core of FoodARC’s objectives and work.
Our projects and activities are all oriented towards building capacity for individuals, organizations, and communities in order to be able to influence food security policies:
- by better understanding the policy environment around food security and testing policy change approaches to help guide action;
- by increasing the knowledge and skills of all partners through mutual learning about participatory action research, food security, and strategies for policy change; and
- by working together to share the knowledge and insights gained, to increase awareness of both the issues and possible solutions, build capacity for advocacy, and identify opportunities for change.
FoodARC’s Make Food Matter toolkit has pulled together over 10 years of our research and collective experiences into a set of resources to support advocacy and policy change. Visit Make Food Matter to check out the five action streams of the toolkit – community dialogues, policy, advocacy, social innovation and effective communication.