Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities

Front matter

Urban Food Systems Governance and Poverty in African Cities

As Africa urbanises and the focus of poverty shifts to urban centres, there is an imperative to address poverty in African cities. This is particularly the case in smaller cities, which are often the most rapidly urbanising, but the least able to cope with this growth. This book argues that an examination of the food system and food security provides a valuable lens to interrogate urban poverty. Chapters examine the linkages between poverty, urban food systems and local governance with a focus on case studies from three smaller or secondary cities in Africa: Kisumu (Kenya), Kitwe (Zambia) and Epworth (Zimbabwe).

The book makes a wider contribution to debates on urban studies and urban governance in Africa through analysis of the causes and consequences of the paucity of urban-scale data for decision makers, and by presenting potential methodological innovations to address this paucity. As the global development agenda is increasingly focusing on urban issues, most notably the urban goal of the new Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda, the work is timely.

PART I Urbanisation, poverty, food and measurement

1 African urbanisation and poverty MUNA SHIFA AND JACQUELINE BOREL-SALADIN

2 Rural bias and urban food security JONATHAN CRUSH AND LIAM RILEY

3 Linking urban food security, urban food systems, poverty, and urbanisation JANE BATTERSBY AND GARETH HAYSOM

4 Understanding and addressing poverty, labour force, and urbanisation data gaps in sub-Saharan Africa JACQUELINE BOREL-SALADIN, MUNA SHIFA, AND ANN DONALD vi

Contents

PART II Urban food governance and planning 81

Historical urban food governance in Africa: the case of Kenya, c. 1900 to 1950 83

6 Current urban food governance and planning in Africa 94 WARREN SMIT 7 Contributing yet excluded?: informal food retail in African cities 104 CAROLINE SKINNER 8 Planning and governance of food systems in Kisumu City 116 PATRICK ODHIAMBO HAYOMBE, FREDRICK OMONDI OWINO, AND FRANKLINE OTIENDE AWUOR 9 Planning and governance of food systems in Kitwe, Zambia: a case study of food retail space 128 JANE BATTERSBY AND FRANCIS MUWOWO 10 Governance of food systems in Epworth, Zimbabwe 141 EASTHER CHIGUMIRA, GODFREY TAWODZERA, OLIVER MANJENGWA, AND IDAH MBENGO 11 Urban food production in Harare, Zimbabwe 154 PERCY TORIRO PART III Understanding the urban food systems 167 12 Food value chains in Kisumu, Kitwe, and Epworth: environmental and social hotspots 169 LESLEY SIBANDA AND HARRO VON BLOTTNITZ 13 The characteristics of the urban food system in Kisumu, Kenya 182 PAUL OTIENO OPIYO AND HARUN OKELLO OGINDO

Contents vii

14 The characteristics of the urban food system in Kitwe, Zambia: a focus on the retail sector 195 ISSAHAKA FUSEINI, JANE BATTERSBY, AND NIRAJ JAIN

15 The characteristics of the urban food system in Epworth, Zimbabwe 208 GODFREY TAWODZERA, EASTHER CHIGUMIRA, IDAH MBENGO, AND SAMUEL KUSANGAYA

PART IV The state of urban food poverty and its connections

to the food system 221 16 Food poverty in Kisumu, Kenya 223

GEORGE GODWIN WAGAH, NELSON OBANGE, AND HARUN OKELLO OGINDO

17 Food poverty in Kitwe, Zambia 236 ISSAHAKA FUSEINI AND OWEN SICHONE

18 Food poverty in Epworth, Zimbabwe 249 GODFREY TAWODZERA AND EASTHER CHIGUMIRA

Figures

0.1 1.1

1.2

1.3

4.1 8.1

10.1

15.1 15.2 16.1 16.2

17.1 17.2

Location of case study cities

Percentage changes in the share of population and GDP per capita in SSA between 1960 and 2016

Urban population proportion dynamics in Kenya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, 1950—2015

Trends in urbanisation and per capita GDP in Kenya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

Organizational chart of data challenges

Kisumu City’s sources of food as established via 2017

field survey

Cartel (middlemen and marshalls) operating on the food value chain for Epworth

Value chain analyses of maize and rice

Illustrations of the food chain with hotspots shown

Value chain for ugali (maize meal)

Value chain for tilapia and Nile perch

Value chain for kale and cabbage

Value chain for porridge

Value chain for eggs

Food products sold in Kitwe by retailers (% of cases)

Access to supportive infrastructure by food retailers in Kitwe Frequency of restocking food products by retailers Respondents’ views on major threats to their food retail businesses

Spatial distribution of retail food outlets in Epworth

Food sold by retailers in Epworth

Foods eaten in the previous day (n834)

Percentage of households experiencing inadequate food provisioning (by month) (n831)

Percentage of households experiencing LPI constituent elements Percentage of households experiencing inadequate food provisioning (by month)

395 70

205 215 217 230

231 241

Tables

Fel

Sub-Saharan Africa: informal sector employment as percentage of total non-agricultural employment, by sex

(latest year available)

Patronage by outlet type (% of households interviewed in the AFSUN survey)

Percentage distribution of household food sources by type of outlet in Epworth, Kisumu and Kitwe, 2016/17

List of selected foodstufts

Food processing methods and reasons for processing Distribution of food retail survey respondents

Employment in food retail business

Age-gender cross-tabulation of food retailers in Kitwe (N=284)

Incidence of bulk breaking of selected food products (based on reported sales of those products)

Number of households sampled by region

Reported LPI household deprivations (n819) (% of households)

Frequency of accessing food from the ten most commonly used sources of food (multiple response options) (n840) Categories of foods eaten by surveyed households (%)

Total number of questionnaires administered in Epworth,

by ward

Number of households in each food security category

by LPI score

Boxes

11.1 Nyanga Declaration on Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture in Zimbabwe, 7 July 2002, Nyanga, Zimbabwe

11.2 The Harare Declaration on Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa 2003

Foreword

This book presents the findings of an international collaborative research project that aimed to improve our understanding of the connections between urban poverty, food systems, household food security and governance, by focusing on three secondary cities in Anglophone sub-Saharan Africa.

On the whole, colonial governments sought to prevent people from moving into urban areas, not least because of the potentially politically destabilising effects of population concentrations. Where urban workers were needed, the colonial powers developed urban policies and governance systems that were strongly influenced by European ideas about well-planned towns and cities and public health concerns but disenfranchised urban residents. In these contexts, colonial governments did indeed pay attention to food, through measures that sought to ensure a supply of cheap food for wage workers (a continuing priority for post-independence governments). The reality of increasing rural-urban migration and governance arrangements that were incapable of keeping pace with the demands of low-income urban growth were soon clear, but governments were reluctant to admit the shortcomings of their own policies and urban management systems.

Many aspects of urban growth that were the subject of research and policy development in richer countries, including those from which African countries won independence between the 1960s and the 1980s, were neglected, so the evidential basis for developing better informed and more appropriate policies was lacking, while policies driven mainly by the interests of national politicians and, in these aid-dependent countries, international financial institutions failed to fully acknowledge urban problems and to tackle them coherently. My own research in Lusaka in the 1970s revealed that urban agriculture was a widespread practice, while the eventual publication of that evidence sought to make visible an activity that seemed to be invisible to researchers, drawing attention to its gendered characteristics in a context where rural women had primary responsibility for household food production (Rakodi 1988). By that time, more attention was being given to the historical evolution of food supply and policies (Guyer 1987), and new research on urban agriculture was being undertaken.

xii Foreword

By the 1980s, the devastating results of economic liberalisation policies for countries attempting to diversify their economies away from agriculture and mining through protecting nascent manufacturing sectors were becoming clear, but attention focused on the implications of changes in agricultural support and pricing policies for rural poverty, while national policy makers and international donor agencies alike were reluctant to acknowledge the adverse effects of structural adjustment policies for urban household livelihoods and urban management capacity. The focus of research shifted to developing improved analytical frameworks for understanding urban household livelihoods and documenting urban poverty. From the outset, it was recognised that household livelihoods cannot be understood in isolation from the wider economic and political linkages that provide or constrain household choices related to income earning, consumption, land and housing tenure, access to services, and political participation. For some years, too little attention was given to these wider links, including the environmental and governance systems that influence water supply and waste management, energy supply and, indeed, food. Gradually, more attention has been given to them and it is in the latter area that this book makes its path-breaking contribution.

The Consuming Urban Poverty research project builds on longstanding but patchy research on urban planning and management; politics at the local, city and national levels; household livelihoods; ‘informal sector’ activities; and urban land supply and management, as well as more recent related research on food systems and food security, using innovative methods such as commodity value chain analysis. Its in-depth studies assembled new data on the case study cities of Kisumu in Kenya, Kitwe in Zambia and Epworth in Zimbabwe, situated within a review of the wider sub-Saharan African policy and data scenes. It reveals the lived reality of food poverty for many urban households, including a lack of dietary diversity and frequent food insecurity. It stresses the continuing rural bias of national and international food security policy, one of the reasons why interventions are often inappropriate and damaging. It unpicks some of the complex interconnections between poverty, food systems and governance, and shows that urban food systems have intra-urban, city-regional, national, and international dimensions. Revealing the many links between formal and informal food supply systems, it strengthens calls for improved theoretical understanding of urban economies. And it documents how limited and inaccurate understanding of the complex interconnections between poverty, food systems and governance, professional preconceptions and political dynamics leads to interventions that are often inappropriate and damaging.

I was delighted to be invited to chair the Advisory Board for this project. The Board was a small, knowledgeable and committed group of people who brought international academic and donor perspectives, knowledge of and connections with the local and national contexts of the three case study cities, and expertise in research communication to advise the teams at the African Centre for Cities and in the three case study cities. I hope that our inputs contributed positively to their work.

Foreword xiii

I look forward to this team and others taking forward the research, policy and practice work identified. This research shows that future work needs to overtly acknowledge and analyse the realities of political power relationships, examine the drivers and characteristics of changes in urban food wholesaling and retailing systems, and ensure that analysis and policy is gendered throughout. This study has contributed to the evolution of theoretical and analytical frameworks for understanding city economies, urban land tenure and management, and the interactions between local, city and national politics, but further refinements to ways of studying and understanding city economies, urban land tenure, management and planning, and the interactions between local, city and national politics are required. In addition, there is a need to evaluate the outcomes of policy and planning interventions and to assess their transferability to urban and country contexts with different colonial histories, economic bases, political configurations, governance capacities and vulnerability to climatic and environmental strains and stresses.

Carole Rakodi, Emeritus Professor, International Development Department, School of Government and Society, University of Birmingham

Guyer, J. (ed.) (1987) Feeding African Cities: Studies in Regional and Social History. Manchester: Manchester University Press for the International African Institute, London.

Rakodi, C. (1988) Urban agriculture: research questions and Zambian evidence. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 26(3), pp. 495-515.

Contributors

Frankline Otiende Awuor is a lecturer in the School of Spatial Planning and Natural Resources Management at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (OQOUST). Dr. Otiende is a range ecologist, having graduated from the University of Nairobi with a BSc and MSc in Range Management and a PhD in Planning from JOOUST. Currently, he is a post-doctoral fellow in food security at the Kisumu Local Interaction Platform (KLIP). His research interests are in solid waste management, wildlife management, and ecotourism.

Harro von Blottnitz is a professor in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of Cape Town (UCT), where he is based in the highly dynamic and successful Chemical Engineering Department. Professor von Blottnitz holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering from UCT, a BSc Honours in Operations Research from UNISA, an MSc in Engineering from UCT, and a Doctorate in Engineering from the RWTH Aachen in Germany. He defines his research and teaching interests by the multiple challenges of sustainable development in developing country settings and has published widely in the fields of Life Cycle Assessment, Renewable Energy (biogas, biodiesel and bio-ethanol), and Waste Management.

Jacqueline Borel-Saladin completed her undergraduate, Honours, and Masters degrees in Environmental and Geographical Science and her PhD in Sociology, with a particular focus on changing employment patterns in South Africa, at the University of Cape Town (UCT). She then moved to the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), where she worked on topics ranging from resilient cities and the green economy to the state of secondary cities in South Africa and national urban planning policy in Africa. She is currently a post-doctoral research fellow on the Consuming Urban Poverty project at the African Centre for Cities (UCT), focusing on urbanisation and poverty in the project’s case study cities.

Easther Chigumira is a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe. She holds a

Contributors xv

BA(Hons) and Masters of Social Science degree in Geography from Rhodes University, and a PhD in Geography (specialization in Political Ecology) from the University of Oregon (USA). She is a political ecologist with research and capacity building interests in land and agrarian studies, urban food studies, climate change resilience, and the green economy. She is a country partner coordinator for the ESRC/DFID-funded research project Governing Food Systems to Alleviate Poverty in Secondary Cities in Africa.

Jonathan Crush is the CIGI Chair in Global Migration and Development at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. He co-founded and directs the Hungry Cities Partnership and African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN) and is a co-investigator on the Consuming Urban Poverty project at the African Centre for Cities. He has published extensively on urbanisation, migration, and food security issues in the Global South. His most recent publications include Rapid Urbanisation, Urban Food Deserts and Food Security in Africa (with Jane Battersby), Food and Nutrition Security in Southern African Cities (with Bruce Frayne and Cameron McCordic), and a Special Issue of International Migration 55 (2017) on ‘Cultivating the Migration—Food Security Nexus’.

Ann Donald is a researcher and teacher with a background in Geographical Information Systems. She was involved in the remote sensing and geographic analysis of the Consuming Urban Poverty project.

James Duminy is a researcher and PhD graduate at the African Centre for Cities (University of Cape Town) and general secretary of the Association of African Planning Schools. He holds Masters degrees in Town and Regional Planning (University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) and Urban History (University of Leicester, United Kingdom) He completed his PhD at the University of Cape Town. His research interests centre on the interface between planning theory and history, with a focus on colonial and postcolonial Africa within the context of the wider Global South.

Issahaka Fuseini is a post-doctoral researcher at the African Centre for Cities (ACC), University of Cape Town (UCT). He is a human geographer with research interests in urban governance around the intersections of planning, provision and access to urban services, urban food security, and urban and peri-urban agriculture practices. He currently works on the Nourishing Spaces project, which is being implemented in six cities in Southern and East Africa; two each in Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The project focuses on understanding the urban food system changes and to mitigate the emergent burden of diet-related non-communicable diseases in urban Africa.

Patrick Odhiambo Hayombe is a senior lecturer and the dean of the School of Spatial Planning and Natural Resource Management at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology ((QOUST). He xvi Contributors received his PhD in Environmental Planning and Management and MPhil in Environmental Planning and Management at Moi University and his BA in Geography from the University of Nairobi. Dr. Hayombe has participated in several research projects, including Consuming Urban Poverty, Kisumu Local Interaction Platform — Mistra Urban Futures (SIDA), and Servir Africa/Regional Centre for Mapping and Resource Development, and supervised several post-graduate theses and published in refereed journals.

Gareth Haysom is a researcher at African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town where he coordinates the IDR C-funded Hungry Cities Partnership project. Gareth also works on the ESRC/DFID Consuming Urban Poverty project and the IDR C-funded Nourishing Space project. His work uses food as a lens to understand the complex nature of the urban transitions currently underway in the Global South.

Niraj Jain is a lecturer of land economy in the School of the Built Environment at the Copperbelt University (CBU) in Zambia. He holds an undergraduate degree from CBU and a MPhil from Cambridge University (United Kingdom). He is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society (FCCS) and of the Surveyors Institute of Zambia (FSIZ). Currently, Niraj sits on the Zambia Institute of Estate Agents Council, CBU Senate, and the national Higher Education Authority Committee of Experts. His research interests are mainly inclined towards land tenure security with an emphasis on customary land holding.

Samuel Kusangaya is a physical geographer with expertise in hydrology, Geographic Information Sciences (GIS), and remote sensing by profession and training. His interests are in geo-information science applications in climate change modelling, vegetation monitoring, and hydrology and water resource management. To date, Mr. Kusangaya has authored or co-authored more than 40 journal and reference papers, six course modules, four book chapters, and has developed and implemented various teaching curriculum. Currently Mr. Kusangaya is a lecturer within the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Zimbabwe and has submitted his PhD in Hydrology at the University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa.

Oliver Manjengwa is a post-graduate student at the University of Cape Town where he is currently enrolled for a Masters in Southern Urbanism in the African Centre for Cities. He holds a BA in Geography from the University of Cape Town. Mr. Manjengwa has extensive research experience and has worked on several projects on urban poverty, urbanisation, risk and resilience in Zimbabwe.

Idah Mbengo is an environmental scientist in the department of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Zimbabwe. She has over 15 years

Contributors xvii of teaching, research, and consulting experience. She specializes in environmental strategy formulation, environmental management systems, and social and environmental impact assessments. Her current research interests are in urban geography and cognitive and behavioural geography, with a particular focus the behavioural attitudes of smallholder farmers towards climate change.

Francis Muwowo is a lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Copperbelt University. He was previously the Town Planner of Lusaka. He holds a Masters in Town Planning from the University of Auckland and is the president of the African Council for Planning, Housing and Environment (ACOPHE).

Nelson Obange holds a PhD in Economics from Maseno University and is a faculty member in the Department of Economics at Maseno University. He has post-graduate training in project management and logistics. As a development economist and a researcher at KLIP, his focus is in urbanisation and urban economic challenges such as urban food insecurity and poverty, urban land use and governance, and urban public financing. He also has a passion for research on enhancing green energy and economies for better livelihoods.

Harun Okello Ogindo is currently an associate professor, researcher, and chair of the Department of Applied Plant Sciences at Maseno University, Kenya. He is a prominent researcher in the fields of agro-ecosystems, crop resource use, impacts of climate and environmental changes, and food systems. He worked for 15 years in implementing food security projects as an agronomist and extensionist within the Irrigation and Drainage Branch, Ministry of Agriculture, Kenya. He has spent a further 18 years teaching and researching on cropping systems of importance to food security among smallholder farmers in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Paul Otieno Opiyo is a programme management specialist with interests in food security, livelihoods, and environment. He has 20 years of experience managing development programmes in private, non-profit, and public sectors. He is currently a PhD candidate and researcher in urban food security based at Kisumu Local Interaction Platform Trust (KLIP). He holds a Bachelors of Environmental Science (Kenyatta University) and a MA in Project Planning & Management (University of Nairobi).

Fredrick Omondi Owino is a lecturer at the School of Spatial Planning and Natural Resource Management at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (OQOOUST). He received his Bachelors degree in Design and Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Nairobi. He completed a PhD in Planning from JOOUST after being awarded a scholarship by SIDA and Mistra Urban Futures (Kisumu xviii Contributors

Local Interaction Platform). Currently he is a post-doctoral fellow whose research interests include green planning, human settlement planning, transportation, and urban agriculture. He has published in several refereed journals.

Liam Riley is a Banting Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Canada. His contributions to urban food security research are centred on the use of a gender lens of analysis and on the implications of food insecurity for gender inequality in African cities. This work is rooted in extensive fieldwork in Malawi’s major cities. He is currently managing a project on food security and food systems in secondary city case studies in Malawi (Mzuzu), Cameroon (Dschang), and Namibia (Oshakati) through the African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN).

Muna Shifa is a post-doctoral research fellow, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town. Her research is in development economics, with a particular focus on land tenure systems and rural livelihoods, subjective well-being and relative income, inequality and social cohesion, urbanisation and development, and analysis of poverty and inequality.

Lesley Sibanda is a researcher at the African Centre for Cities, University of Cape Town (UCT). She holds a BSc in Chemical Engineering and MPhil in Chemical Engineering, both from UCT.

Owen Sichone is the director of the Dag Hammarskjöld Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, Copperbelt University. He has previously taught at several southern African universities including Wits University and the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He was also Nelson Mandela Professor in African Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in India. He is a political sociologist whose work includes studies of xenophobia and ethnic identities in South Africa and the state and democracy in Africa.

Caroline Skinner is the Urban Research Director at Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing, and a senior researcher at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town.

Warren Smit is the research manager at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, where he has worked since 2008. His background is in urban planning, and he previously worked as a researcher on urban issues from 1993 onwards (at the Urban Problems Research Unit, Built Environment Support Group, and Development Action Group). His research interests include urban governance, urban health, and housing.

Godfrey Tawodzera is an independent researcher, consultant, and academic based in Cape Town. He has previously worked at the University of

Contributors xix

Limpopo, the University of Cape Town, the University of Zimbabwe, and the Catholic University of Mozambique. An associate of the African Centre for Cities (ACC), the Southern African Migration Programme (SAMP), and the African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN), Godfrey researches on food security, poverty, livelihoods, and migration. He has published over 40 journals articles, book chapters, working papers, and monographs.

Percy Toriro is an urban planner who worked for many years in Harare City and taught at the University of Zimbabwe. He later worked at the Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa, where he was an urban planning specialist managing the RUAF regional urban agriculture projects. He was later seconded to the AFSUN project. He is a part-president of the Zimbabwe Institute of Regional and Urban Planners. Percy’s research interests include urban informality, urban environmental planning, and urban food security. He is currently pursuing PhD studies with the University of Cape Town.

George Godwin Wagah is a senior lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and a former dean of the School of Planning and Architecture, Maseno University. He holds a PhD in Planning. He is the director of SPADE Project, a project implemented by Maseno University and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is also Principal Researcher of Socio Spatial Track Project, a project funded by Mistra Urban Futures. He is also a researcher with Consuming Urban Poverty, an ESR C/DFID-funded project. Wagah is a corporate member of the Kenya Institute of Planners (MKIP).

Preface

Food is central to the health and well-being of urban residents, and yet food is rarely on the urban agenda. This is particularly true in Africa, which is experiencing rapid urbanisation in both primary and secondary cities. The book argues that this lack of policy and programmatic attention has negative food security outcomes for urban residents, and therefore impedes economic and social development. It also makes a broader argument that important contributions to debates on urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa, the nature of urban poverty and the relationship between governance, poverty and the spatial characteristics of cities and towns in the region can be made through a focus on urban food systems and the dynamics of urban food poverty.

The book emerges out of the ESRC/DFID-funded Governing Food Systems to Alleviate Poverty in Secondary Cities in Africa project (branded as Consuming Urban Poverty or CUP).The project, housed at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town (UCT), was a partnership between UCT, the Kisumu Local Interaction Platform (KLIP) in Kenya, the University of Zimbabwe in Zimbabwe, and Copperbelt University in Zambia. Working in Kisumu (Kenya), Epworth (Zimbabwe) and Kitwe (Zambia), the project sought to answer the central question of “How and why do the relational dynamics of urbanisation and the food system influence poverty dimensions and food security in secondary cities?” The chapters here represent some of the core findings and contributions of the project across its workstreams, which focused on: urbanisation and poverty, urban food systems and food security, and governance.

Carolyn Steel wrote, “In order to understand cities properly, we need to look at them through food” (Steel 2008: 10). We trust that this book enhances our collective understandings of African urbanism.

Jane Battersby and Vanessa Watson University of Cape Town March 2018

Reference

Steel, C. (2008). Hungry city: How food shapes our lives. London: Chatto and Windus.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the support of the ESRC/DFID Joint Fund for Poverty Alleviation Research (grant number is ES/L008610/1) for the Governing Food Systems to Alleviate Poverty in Secondary Cities in Africa (Consuming Urban Poverty) project.

We would like to thank Carole Rakodi, chair of the Consuming Urban Poverty Advisory Board, and all the Board members for peer-reviewing the chapters and for valuable advice and guidance throughout the research project. We thank the full CUP research team, based in Cape Town, Kisumu, Epworth and Kitwe, for their contribution to the research effort. Also, Owen Crankshaw for advice on household surveys; Ivanna Katz for editing and formatting; Sean Robertson for graphics and Issahaka Fuseini for the case study map; and Tim Hardwick and Amy Johnston of Routledge for editorial assistance.

A call to connect food and urban agendas

Food is central to urban health, urban economies and urban form. Roberts has argued, “More than with any other of our biological needs, the choices we make around food affect the shape, style, pulse, smell, look, feel, health, economy, street life and infrastructure of the city” (2001: 4). However, food has been largely absent from urban studies and urban policy, and the urban has been equally absent from food security studies and policy. This book is the first of its kind that together brings the crucial issues of urban food security, food systems and governance. It highlights the implications of a lack of urban food policy and planning in African countries and cities. It also illustrates how household food security and food systems are impacted by governance decisions made in the absence of consideration of their potential food security impact. It is intended that the book provides new entry points to discuss the drivers of African urban development trajectories. It is based on the premise that important contributions to debates on urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa, the nature of urban poverty, and the relationship between governance, poverty and the spatial characteristics of cities and towns in the region can be made through a focus on urban food systems and the dynamics of urban food poverty.

Food and poverty have historically been intertwined, with many national poverty lines constructed on the basis of the cost of a calorically sufficient diet. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) reinforced the notional connection between poverty and food security, with MDG 1 focusing on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger. However, while the ending extreme poverty component of MDG 1 was the focus of much policy attention, the hunger goal was termed the “forgotten MDG” by Graeme Wheeler, World Bank Managing Director, who argued that it was “often unrecognised, rarely acted upon, and grossly under-funded” (Fukuda-Parr 2017: 167).

Within the post-2015 Development Agenda, as characterized by the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the New Urban Agenda (NUA), food security has risen in prominence. The second SDG is to: “End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture,’ and within the NUA there are 18 mentions of food security or food more broadly, and a further seven mentions of nutrition. The framing of SDG 2 was not expressed as simply hunger, but also food security, and an important shift is its recognition of the need for improved nutrition in the context of sustainable agriculture. Food insecurity and hunger are not synonymous. Food security is the situation “when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO 1996). As will be elaborated on in Chapter 3 of this book, the achievement of food security is dependent on adequate availability, accessibility and capacity to utilize food, and the stability of this availability, accessibility and utilization. This widening of the agenda from ending hunger to achieving food security therefore requires a wider set of policy and programmatic responses.