Community-Led Urban Food Access and Resilience in Fragile Contexts: Practice-Based Lessons from Palestine

This paper examines how community-led approaches can strengthen urban food access and resilience in fragile contexts, drawing on practice-based evidence from Palestine. It reflects on local implementation experience in contexts where conflict, displacement, disrupted supply chains, and service instability place growing pressure on urban and peri-urban households. The paper uses field-based observations, rapid needs assessments, implementation learning, and local coordination experience to explore how community actors, civil society organizations, and informal support systems help sustain food access during crisis. It highlights practical lessons on localized delivery models, community trust, adaptive targeting, and the role of local institutions in responding to urgent needs while supporting longer-term resilience. The paper argues that practice-based evidence from fragile settings can inform more grounded urban climate and resilience discussions, especially where vulnerability is shaped by overlapping social, economic, and environmental stresses. It concludes with transferable insights for policy and practice on inclusive, context-sensitive approaches to urban resilience.