Governing Food Systems to Alleviate Poverty in Secondary Cities in Africa

Urban areas in sub-Saharan Africa are growing rapidly. While there has been considerable attention paid to the challenges of African mega-cities, the experiences of smaller urban areas have been relatively neglected. Secondary cities, with populations of less than half a million, are absorbing two-thirds of all urban population growth in Africa. This project focuses on three such cities to build a clearer picture of the dynamics of poverty in these kinds of urban spaces and to provide information and insights which can address poverty reduction. Poverty cannot be understood or addressed by focusing on poor individuals or households alone. Rather it needs to be understood as having many intersecting drivers operating at a range of scales, from the individual, to the neighbourhood, to the city and beyond. Nor can it be understood or addressed by focusing on governance, infrastructure or economic growth, alone. The challenge of this project is to understand the dynamic connections between poverty, governance and urban spaces. We argue that the study of food is a powerful lens to understand these connections. As Carolyn Steel writes, "In order to understand cities properly, we need to look at them through food". The project therefore asks the central question: What does the urban food system in three secondary cities in Africa reveal about the dynamics of urban poverty and its governance, and what are the lessons for generic poverty reduction? There are significant gaps in knowledge about African urban growth and urban poverty. This project therefore consolidates existing survey and census data to understand patterns and trends of urbanization and poverty in the three case study countries and cities. Because there are data gaps, we will also use remote sensing to generate new data on the spread of urban areas. This information provides the basis for general statements to be made about urban poverty, and for poverty reduction strategies generated in the project to be assessed against a broader representation of poverty. The project turns its focus to food as a way to understand the connections between poverty, governance and urban space. It will conduct a survey in each of three cities to assess how many households, and what kinds of households and individuals, are unable to get enough safe and nutritious food. Poor nutrition is an important indicator and driver of poverty. Most work on food poverty has focused on the household scale alone. This project argues that if food poverty, and poverty more generally, is to be addressed, it will be necessary to take a broader view and look at the food system. The food system in these cities is shifting rapidly as the supermarket sector increases and the flows of food become more global. This project assesses these changes by mapping the food retail environment, interviewing key people involved in the food system and analyses policy in order to test the impact of a changing food system on food poverty, and what appropriate governance responses might be. The project therefore scans the globe for useful precedents in addressing urban poverty through strategic planning of, and interventions in the urban food system. Throughout the project the focus will be on working with local governments, NGOs and civil society organisations to generate local solutions that are adaptable to multiple contexts. The outputs from this project are designed to have both practical and academic impacts. Policy impact will be generated by policy briefs and city reports that support the workshops to be held with municipal officials and policy makers. These will be translated into popular media resources to raise public awareness. Reports addressing urbanization, poverty and governance at a wider scale will be produced. These will be disseminated at major urban events and included in university curricula. Peer-reviewed academic publications will be produced in order to influence academic debates.