A three-hour session was externally facilitated with the Halifax Food Policy Alliance on October 29, 2019. The purpose of the session was to advance collaborative visioning of draft outcomes for the Food Action Plan based on the vision and principles developed through the Halifax Food Charter. Steering Committee members who were involved represented public health and nutrition, a federation of farmers, a food bank agency, the Halifax regional municipality, research on collaborative food governance, an environmental organization involved in food literacy, leadership and policy engagement.
The session began with a short personal food story to help everyone think about change and influence. The group then did some collective analysis around the gendered food system and leverage points.
Many leverage points were identified. Smaller groups started an outcome mapping process with three intermediate outcomes that had been identified as having some energy and momentum on which to build. The following draft or initial outcomes were identified as outcomes characterizing a vision of change by the year 2030. Important to note that these were just preliminary discussions. These are not final, but begin the dialogue:
Increased political and public will to destigmatize poverty (food insecurity) and treat food as a human right
Actions, priorities, resources and decisions are informed by community experience and wisdom
Our food system has adapted and contributes to measurably less to climate change
Food is a cool movement –there is a feeling of abundance, opportunities*
Good green livelihoods from food have grown*
Note: these two outcomes were added from the dialogue workshop, previous consultations and agreed-upon Alliance principles
Outcome mapping is particularly useful to support dialogue across different stakeholders to align around their different understandings of change and influence. Outcome mapping has gained popularity because simple language can be used to see where different groups are coming from. What do they expect to see? What would they like to see? What would they love to see? Expressing the changes in these simple terms as if they have already occurred helps different stakeholders talk about a shared vision where each group can share their road path to get there.