Urban food systems governance for NCD prevention in Africa
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Lead institution(s)
Summary
There is a rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) across Africa, driven in part by the increasing consumption of unhealthy diets (including ultra-processed and fast foods).Read more
There is a rising burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) across Africa, driven in part by the increasing consumption of unhealthy diets (including ultra-processed and fast foods). Unhealthy diets are becoming more available because food systems, especially in urban parts of Africa, are changing rapidly as a result of urbanization and globalization. For instance, global fast food franchises are expanding aggressively across major cities in Africa. These changing food systems and the related rise in diet-related NCDs cannot be sufficiently tackled by national-level government policies. Diet-related NCDs are largely an urban problem, and there is a lack of urban-level research evidence available to local policymakers and stakeholders.
In collaboration with the University of Cape Town (South Africa), this project will review the current state of evidence regarding food systems, NCDs and their interactions in the case study countries. It proposes “urban-scale research” for addressing diet-related non-communicable diseases in six urban sites — Cape Town and Kimberley in South Africa, Nairobi and Kisumu in Kenya, and Windhoek and Oshakati in Namibia. The sites represent a mix of large and mid-sized urban populations experiencing progressive but varying degrees of change in their food systems, and varying but significant burdens of diet-related NCDs.
The main activities of this research project include conducting an assessment of consumption trends, food choices, and experiences with NCDs to understand the complex drivers of urban household food practices; mapping the local formal and informal food retail environment in order to understand the interactions between urban infrastructure and food retail; and analyzing urban and national policies and strategies relevant to food systems, as well as local government perspectives on their role in food system governance. Ultimately, the project aims to support local governments and community stakeholders in each study site to use the knowledge generated from this research to develop local action plans and interventions that will help to reduce the burden of food-related non-communicable diseases.
Research outputs
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The garden creates a space in which to “talk around” the problem of diet-related non-communicable disease, and allows for the co-construction of “food choice.” In the school context, and at home, food is about labor: the same women hauling water were cooking food at school and at home. On the other hand, teachers and students discovered that spinach tasted noticeably better when freshly harvested, even when there was insect damage. The consumption of greens at school was inevitable rather than shaped by willpower or desire for health. The children did not have to disavow their appreciation of pizza. This research stumbled upon the tenets of “slow research.”
“Tomatoes and taxi ranks” provides an intimate account of what poor urban Africans eat; where they source their food; how their diets and nutritional intake changes with urbanisation; and the corrosive capitalist logics that drive much of these processes. It reveals urban living as marked by a soulless ‘convenience.’ The book suggests that international trade policy must connect with local regulations in order to alter the course of urban livelihoods and wellbeing for the urban poor. It demands a fundamental remaking of governance, and calls for new forms of urban citizenship.
The policy framing of food security must alter to consider food supply as a municipal function. Urban zoning laws that discriminate against small traders are highlighted. The presentation defines concepts regarding availability of food and food security. Availability is not just about having enough. It’s about the balance of types of food made available within the food system, and why certain types of food are more available than others. It also means accessibility, and in urban spaces this often means sacrificing food security and market stalls to meet other urban planning needs. Stability of supply can refer to both accessibility and availability.
Choice was framed as a driver of diet-related non-communicable disease (NCD) in the study participants' encounters in clinical settings. Yet participants lacked economic access to food, particularly at the end of the month. The objective of this paper is to explore peri-urban residents' perspectives of changing food environments, framed by the Food Aid Organization (FAO) definition of food security. It demonstrates the interconnectedness of dimensions of food security. The study included in-depth interviews with 21 participants and nine focus group discussions, in a peri-urban township and informal settlement outside of Cape Town, South Africa.
The article aims to reflect on themes and questions that potentially advance decolonial teaching tactics tactics – via the gut. The author designed and taught a course for anthropology students at Sol Plaatje University in 2019 (one of two post-Apartheid South African Universities). The article describes the course and some of its outcomes. Scholars have tended to underestimate the power of nourishing food to help us understand how death is arranged socially and spatially, and how the political and social are knit together.