Living Lab on Food Insecurity: Toward Integrated Policy Proposals

On April 22, the Living Lab focused on the theme “Food Poverty: Toward Integrated Policy Proposals” took place in Palermo at the Garibaldi Theater. The event was hosted as part of Earth Day Med 2026 (April 18–22, 2026), the Mediterranean Climate Festival designed as a space for dialogue to address the challenges of climate change and discuss solutions for a just ecological and energy transition through panels, debates, art, and workshops dedicated to citizens.

During the event, we discussed strategies to combat food poverty and the various governance models at the European and national levels, beginning with the presentation of the comparative report “Three different models of food poverty intervention: Italy, France, Germany,” prepared by EStà in collaboration with the Heinrich-Böll Foundation France | Italy.

Workshop

During the working group sessions, discussions focused on sharing local experiences and collaboratively designing innovative models to identify future needs and expectations that can ensure everyone has dignified access to healthy and sustainable food.

Looking ahead

The discussion yielded a series of findings that confirm the complexity of the phenomenon in the Mediterranean basin, where the climate crisis is intertwined with pre-existing socio-economic vulnerabilities.

The plenary session, guided by the question “What can we do in response to the identified expectations?”, highlighted the following points:

For grant-making foundations:

Actively promote synergies among the associations to which grants are awarded
Strengthen connections between public entities and third sector organizations

For the third sector:

• Adopt a systemic approach to the issue of food
• Collaborate on specific objectives, even starting with small-scale initiatives (revisiting the model of competitive calls for proposals)
• Monitor the impacts of calls for proposals and projects
• Raise public awareness
• The debate featured the active participation and dialogue of various key stakeholders in the sector, including representatives from local institutions, research centers and academia, grant-making foundations, and third sector organizations active at both the national and local levels in food distribution and social support.