The City Region Food Systems (CRFS) assessment and planning toolkit was jointly developed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the RUAF Foundation, and the Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems.

Created within the framework of the Food for the Cities Programme, the CRFS toolkit aims to help local authorities and other stakeholders strengthen the understanding of the current functioning and performance of food systems in the context of a city region, within which rural and urban areas and communities are directly linked. In particular, the toolkit provides guidance on assessing food systems and forms the basis for further planning to reinforce and promote the sustainability of CRFS. It is meant to be a resource for policymakers, researchers, and other key stakeholders and participants who want to better understand their own CRFS and plan for improvements.

The beta version was launched at the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact (MUFPP) annual gathering 2017 in Valencia, Spain. During 2018, project developers improved the toolkit and made available online all the tools that were used in the assessment process in the different pilot cities.

The toolkit is based on the experience of the CRFS assessment and planning process in seven cities: Colombo (Sri Lanka), Lusaka and Kitwe (Zambia), Medellín (Colombia), Quito (Ecuador), Toronto (Canada), and Utrecht (the Netherlands). It provides information about why and how these cities have been implementing this process as well as the outcomes they have achieved. The toolkit contains 45 tools and examples developed and used in the pilot cities and more than 20 additional relevant external tools. The toolkit is a living online instrument that will be enriched and updated on a regular basis as new tools and examples become available.

The toolkit describes the overall approach and the general steps of the assessment and planning process and includes relevant examples. The approach builds on a formalized process of identifying and engaging all relevant stakeholders from the start of assessment through to policy review and planning.

The pilot cities page of the toolkit includes the results of the CRFS process for each of the seven pilot cities. Each page features different outputs, including fact sheets, situational analysis reports, and policy briefs/reports. These pages also includes links to the Synthesis Report, the main reference report describing the assessment and planning process.