Faced with a global threat to food security, it is perfectly possible that society will respond by reasserting co-operative traditions. This open access book, by a leading expert in urban agriculture, proposes a solution to today’s global food crisis. By contributing more to feeding themselves, it argues that cities can allow breathing space for the rural sector to convert to more organic sustainable approaches. Biel’s approach connects with current debates about agroecology and food sovereignty. It asks key questions, and proposes lines of future research. He suggests that today’s food insecurity – manifested in a regime of wildly fluctuating prices – reflects not just temporary stresses in the existing mode of production, but more profoundly the troubled process of generating a new one. He argues that the solution cannot be implemented at a merely technical or political level: the force of change can only be driven by the kind of social movements which are now daring to challenge the existing unsustainable order.
Poverty and health
The proportion of people worldwide living in urban areas has been increasing over the past century. Southern Africa is one of the least urbanised but fastest urbanising region. The pace of urbanisation in sub-Saharan Africa is twice the global average, making it the highest in the world. The urban population annual growth rate for the region is pegged at 3.75%. South Africa and Botswana have urban populations of more than 60% and Zimbabwe 33%. The survey was conducted in 4 purposively sampled urban high density suburbs. A multi-stage random sampling was then used to select households in the 4 suburbs. The sampling frame for selecting households was obtained from ZIMSTAT, the country’s statistical office. Data was collected over a period of a week in each of the sampled suburbs. During the week the enumerators would conduct household interviews in the Enumeration Areas (EAs). Household questionnaire were used to collected data from the sampled households. The questionnaire covered: characteristics of household members; availability of and access to shelter, water and sanitation; energy sources; income sources; assets. Results shows that where the council provided the houses, the critical services were provided and water, electricity and sanitation were not an issue. The urban councils developed the properties, but their role was not clear in the new urban landscape. Issues of restitution in the event of evictions in these areas were grey areas and people did not know where to go to get assistance when evicted, to where to access legal advice. Residents wanted advice on issues to do with access to land for vending, law enforcement and women empowerment, on land tenure and how to get title deeds. Most lease agreements and title deeds were in the name of the husband, giving men more access to land for housing than women.
This study determined the food security status, coping strategies, food intake and the nutritional status of the Kenneth Gardens community, in urban KwaZulu-Natal. Residents are low income bracket earners and many rely on state disability and pension grants for survival. The research tools included; a food security questionnaire, anthropometric measurements, a socio-demographic questionnaire, a food frequency questionnaire, and 24-hour recall questionnaires conducted in triplicate. The most commonly used coping strategy during periods of food scarcity was “Rely on less expensive and preferred food”. The second used coping strategy was “Reduce the number of meals eaten in a day” , followed by “Contribute to a food stokvel in order to ensure food over a scarce period" and “Restrict consumption by adults in order for small children to eat”. Utilisation of these food coping strategies indicate a degree of food insecurity. Low income and high unemployment increased the prevalence of food insecurity, leading to the coping strategies reported.
Sub-Saharan Africa is currently in the midst of an unprecedented wave of urbanisation that is expected to have wide-ranging implications for food and nutrition security. Though this spatial transformation of the population is increasingly put forward as one of the main drivers of changes in food consumption patterns, empirical evidence remains scarce and the comparative descriptive design of existing research is prone to selection bias as urban residence is far from random. Based upon longitudinal data from the Tanzania National Panel Survey and the Kagera Health and Development Survey, this study is the first to assess the impact of urbanisation on food consumption through comparing individuals’ food consumption patterns before and after they have migrated from rural to urban areas. The authors find that even after controlling for individual fixed heterogeneity, baseline observable characteristics and initial household fixed effects, urbanisation is significantly associated with important changes in dietary patterns, including a shift away from traditional staples towards more processed and ready-to-eat foods. While there is some evidence of changes that can be deemed beneficial from a nutritional point of view - including increased consumption of vegetables and animal source foods - the results also largely confirm concerns about the association between urbanisation and heightened consumption of sugar and fats. In addition, the authors find no support for the hypothesis that urbanisation is associated with more diverse diets. Finally, the results indicate that rural-urban migration significantly contributes to reducing volatility in food consumption.
Launched in 2008, the Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme (PSUP) is a joint effort of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, the European Commission (EC) and UN-Habitat. To date, the programme has reached out to 35 countries, 160 cities, and 2 million slum dwellers. The approach is grounded in integrating slum dwellers into the broader urban fabric using city-wide participatory planning methods. In practical terms, PSUP puts slums on the ‘urban’ maps and facilitates dialogue at local, national and regional levels that is necessary for a ‘mind-set change’, key for inclusive urbanisation. PSUP provides tools and practical experience of inclusive integrated slum upgrading through which all stakeholders learn key lessons. It builds confidence in participatory planning; institutionalises partnerships and improved governance arrangements, equips government with key financing mechanisms for slum upgrading including mechanisms to engage and empower slum dwellers themselves to advance delivery of relevant, community led improved infrastructure in slums.
What would a city free from poverty really look like for urban youth in Tanzania? Dr Nicola Banks, ESRC Future Research Leader, in this video presented information from local research on young people’s vision for a poverty-free city in Tanzania. The video reports evidence from participatory discussion with youth. Urban youth make up a huge proportion of city populations- and the video highlights the economic and social opportunities Tanzanian youth raised in their discussions.
Rates of gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa (SA) are among the highest in the world. In societies where social ideals of masculinity encourage male dominance and control over women, gender power imbalances contribute to male perpetration and women’s vulnerability. The drivers that cause men to perpetrate GBV and those that lead to HIV overlap and interact in multiple and complex ways. Multiple risk and protective factors for GBV perpetration by males operate interdependently at a number of levels; at the individual level, these include chronic anxiety and depression, which have been shown to lead to risky sexual behaviours. This study examined psychosocial risk factors (symptoms of anxiety and depression) as well as protective factors (social support and self-esteem) as self-reported by a cohort of males in rural KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province, SA; and to determine whether there are differences in anxiety, depression, social support and self-esteem between perpetrators and non-perpetrators. The participants were relatively young (median age 22 years); over half were school goers, and 91% had never married. Over 43% of the sample reported clinical levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Rates of GBV perpetration were 61%, 24% and 10% for psychological abuse, non-sexual physical violence and sexual violence, respectively. GBV perpetration was associated with higher depression, higher anxiety, lower self-esteem and lower social support. Interventions to address GBV need to take modifiable individual-level factors into account.
The Human City Project is a community-driven media, architecture, urban planning and human rights movement in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. It is a collaboration between local and international community organisers, filmmakers, broadcasters, urban planners, architects, designers, university researchers and ordinary people from across Port Harcourt’s informal settlements. Those involved share skills and technologies for communities to record their experiences, tell their stories and change their lives. They are moved by the conviction that democratic design principles can make cities more creative and just. Based on community mapping of needs and priorities, a community radio station was started – Chicoco Radio – formally owned by Chicoco Community Media Initiative, an incorporated board of trustees drawn from communities across the city. With a campaign of 'the people live here' communities in the informal settlements in Port Harcourt have resisted eviction, and are carrying out activities to map and make visible their conditions and needs, develop their voice and capacity to participate meaningfully in the shaping of their city, including to change the way the city is imagined and inhabited on principles of social justice and equity. With the means to tell their stories on film, on air and in court, charting their reality on maps and describing their visions in urban action plans, these communities are changing their lives and shaping their city.
Slum dweller federations, like many other social movements, cater for the youth in their constituencies. This is critical to their relevance as agents of change and contributes to the sustainability of the movements. This story is a case study of the youth federation that is aligned to Kenya’s slum dwellers federation. At the slum level, the youth had organized themselves into junior councils that discussed various issues, like how to gain access to football pitches in neighbouring schools. When the annual Youth Council elections came around that year, for the first time slum youth showed up in great numbers and elected their own for all the posts, including junior mayor. From its beginnings in a couple of slums, the movement spread to slums in four of the city’s eight divisions, and the youth called it “Mwamko wa Vijana” (“Youth Awakening”). Three years after it was initiated, a range of activities are underway: a football team, acrobatic and dance troupes, a study group, and a waste collection business. They note: “We share issues in common that we can federate around – education, recreation, income generation and mentoring.” The prospect of renewing the youth federation every year is a daunting task but each year new youth come in that are charged up and compelling in their aspirations, so that there is little choice but to do it again.
This article outlines the Sengwer Community Leaders position that a water towers project in their area is being implemented without free, prior and informed consent of the community. As a forest community, who have been subject to part evictions, there is fear of more violations under the current project. For instance, during Natural Resources Management Project, a World Bank funded project (2007-2013), Sengwer peoples living in Kapolet and Embobut forests had some community members arrested and taken to police custody and accused of trespass while they were within their ancestral, community land. They report further than a woman was shot by KFS guards in the same Kapolet Forest. In Embobut Forest, the Sengwer write that there have been arrests and evictions (burning of houses and destruction of property). Today, they say that the Sengwer are forced to live in caves, thick inside the forest...as aliens in their own ancestral lands and territory, despite the stipulation of Art. 63 (2) (d) ii of the Constitution of Kenya. This forced some members of the community to file a complaint with the World Bank Inspection Panel which went into full investigation. The authors call on the European Union to suspend the Water Towers Protection and Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Programme with immediate effect, carry out adequate, effective and efficient free prior and informed consent (FPIC) with members of Sengwer and let the community make decision after proper understanding of the Water Towers programme. The Singer fully support conservation programmes and projects that recognise, respect, protect and promote their rights as traditional forest indigenous peoples (hunters and gatherers) to live in and own their ancestral lands and territories their community land in forest/protected area sustainably on conservation conditions working closely with state agencies.