Lack of Governance Capacity in Food Systems: Lessons from the Portuguese Initiatives

Abstract

This article is a first contribution to address the lack of a multidimensional perspective on Portugal food systems, based on the analysis of a set of guidelines proposed by FAO, the Milan Pact, non-governmental organisations and academia. Two national databases, one coordinated by the Nutrition Faculty of Porto University and the other by the national Sustainable Cities Food network, were used as a sample, counting a total of 96 initiatives; The Milan Pact’s six dimensions were used as guidelines to analyse the Portuguese initiatives. With the results we conclude that although a promising scenario exists there is still a lack of a systemic vision of the programmes and projects developed. Additionally, these are rarely conceived as part of a food strategy with the involvement of the actors and sectors of the food system in decision-making. Finally, we propose a monitoring lab to enable the followup of existing and forthcoming initiatives, based on international monitoring guidelines, with a special focus on the challenges of governance operationalization.