How do we build a fairer, healthier world for everyone? In a world that has forever been changed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and are in many ways looking to be rebuilt, this is precisely the question World Health Day 2021 prompts us to consider, writes Liezel M. Engelbrecht. (more…)
A recently completed “intervention scan”, conducted by researcher Gareth Haysom for the Nourished Child Project, has uncovered the complex and surprising ways that food interventions connect to the lived realities of women and children in South Africa, writes Ambre Nicholson. (more…)
Obesity among children in South Africa has increased from approximately 1 in 20 children in 2005, to 1 in 8 children in 2015. If we continue on this trajectory, it is estimated that at least 3 in 5 children will be obese by 2030. These were some of the shocking figures shared by Prof Rina […]
How the African Centre for Cities’ Nourished Child project is using a mix of photography and online messaging technology to continue doing fieldwork during the COVID-19 pandemic, writes Ambre Nicholson. (more…)
Understanding the Linkages Between Urban Food Systems and Non-Communicable Diseases in Namiba by researchers Ndeyapo Nickanor, Tobias Shinyemba and Lawrence Kazembe, is the fourth in a series of Nourishing Spaces working papers edited by Jane Battersby. (more…)
Food Systems and Diet-related Non-Communicable Diseases in Kisumu, Kenya by researchers Paul Otieno Opiyo and Stephen Gaya Agong, is the third in a series of Nourishing Spaces working papers edited by Jane Battersby. (more…)
Household Consumption Patterns and NCDs in Kisumu, Kenya by researchers Paul Otieno Opiyo and Stephen Gaya Agong, is the second in a series of Nourishing Spaces working papers edited by Jane Battersby. (more…)
Building on ACC’s continued work on urban food systems through projects such as The Hungry Cities Partnership, Consuming Urban Poverty, and Nourishing Spaces, The Nourished Child project explores the double burden of malnutrition in urban settings in the Western Cape, South Africa. The new project, funded by the UKRI’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Collective […]
Food Systems and Diet-Related NCDS in Cape Town, South Africa, by researcher Jo Hunter-Adams is the first in a series of Nourishing Spaces working papers edited by Jane Battersby. ABSTRACT The aim of this working paper is to offer insight into the lived experience of changing food systems and diet-related non-communicable disease (NCDs) in a […]
Localising the SDGs through an urban food lens in the Global South: Lessons from the Hungry Cities Project is co-hosted by ACC and ICLEI Africa, as part of Local Climate Solutions for Africa (LoCS4Africa). The event, which is structure across two days, is designed to stimulate discussion and reflect on policy and action processes associated […]
Food Dialogues is a free online programme on the local food system bringing together speakers involved in shaping the food system, hosted by the SA Urban Food & Farming Trust in partnership with African Centre for Cities, Oribi Village, the City of Cape Town, ICLEI and Derrick. The Covid-19 pandemic has rendered in stark relief […]
Over-reliance on food imports from other regions of Kenya and neighbouring countries leaves Kisumu city vulnerable to food insecurity should there be any disruptions in the supply chain such as been highlighted by the current pandemic. (more…)
ABSTRACT Objective: To identify factors associated with food purchasing decisions and expenditure of South African supermarket shoppers across income levels. Design: Intercept surveys were conducted, grocery receipts collated and expenditure coded into categories, with each category calculated as percentage of the total expenditure. In-supermarket food quality audit and shelf space measurements of foods such as […]
ABSTRACT This policy brief is informed by the findings of two research projects done in Kisumu over the last four years: 1) the ESRC/DfID-funded ‘Governing Food Systems to Alleviate Poverty in Secondary Cities in Africa’ (Branded Consuming Urban Poverty); and 2) the IDRC-funded ‘Urban Food Systems Governance for Non-Communicable Diseases Prevention in Africa’ (Branded Nourishing […]
This Rapid Response Opinion piece for Agriculture and Human Values, by ACC’s Jane Battersby, was written in the 4th week of South Africa’s lockdown period, when the country had 3465 reported Covid-19 cases and 58 deaths. In it she reflects on how the country’s lockdown regulations reinforced an anti-informality bias in government plans and policy. […]
The Global Nutrition Report, released on 12 May 2020, calls on governments, businesses and civil society to step up efforts to address malnutrition in all its forms and tackle injustices in food and health systems. (more…)
What does obesity have to do with climate change? Quite a lot, according to an influential commission, which says the big food companies that make the junk food fuelling our expanding bodies are also destroying our environment — and need to be stopped. Humans have been getting steadily fatter over the past 30 years and […]
One of the greatest challenges facing Africa’s rapidly growing urban population is how to access sufficient, affordable and nutritious food. A pervasive rural bias that focuses on rural hunger and increased support of smallholder agriculture persists as the dominant feature of current thinking about food security policies. (more…)
Science writer Leonie Joubert looks at food a little differently to most of us. In a number of publications over the last five years, Joubert has argued that our understanding of concepts like hunger, food security and nutrition is often a bit, well, nutty. From smug metropolitans who think obesity is a sign that people […]
Filling the food gap in African cities isn’t about making sure there are more calories in circulation, but about understanding how poverty expresses itself through people’s relationship with food. If we don’t tackle the social, economic, political and geographic forces that shape people’s food choices, our cities will continue to leave many of our poorer […]
Join ACC for the Cape Town launch of Tomatoes & Taxi Ranks: Running our Cities to Fill the Food Gap, by Leonie Joubert with Jane Battersby and Vanessa Watson published by the African Centre for Cities on Wednesday, 21 November 2018, 17:30 for 18:00 at The Book Lounge, 71 Roeland Street, Cape Town. Author Leonie […]
With its engaging narrative style and striking images, Tomatoes & Taxi Ranks translates the fascinating findings of the CUP project into a digestible read accessible to an audience well beyond the borders of academia. One of the most challenging aspects of conducting academic studies is translating crucial findings for a wider audience. With the launch […]
HOW DO THE CITIES WE LIVE IN SHAPE WHAT WE EAT? This question is central to a new book, Tomatoes & Taxi Ranks: Running our Cities to Fill the Food Gap, by Leonie Joubert with Jane Battersby and Vanessa Watson published by the African Centre for Cities. (more…)
African societies and economies are caught up in the intersection of at least five megatrends: population growth, urbanisation, climate change, migration, and the knot of food, water and energy insecurity. (more…)
Owners of small shops in South Africa – in most cases foreigners – have been accused of stocking counterfeit food and food that’s past its sell-by date. The issue has been caught up in xenophobic violence, with shop owners targeted by South Africans . There is very little hard data about what’s referred to as […]
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, a research output from the Consuming Urban […]
Nourishing Spaces, which was launched in June 2017, is an IDRC-funded research and advocacy project working on food security, food systems and governance in neighbourhoods in Cape Town and Kimberley (SA), Windhoek and Oshakati (Namibia), and Nairobi and Kisumu (Kenya). Ultimately, the project aims to support local governments and community stakeholders in each study site […]
ABSTRACT The understanding of food security has seen major shifts since the original conceptualisations of the challenge. These changes in understanding have been accompanied by different food security measurement approaches. (more…)
In sub-Saharan Africa, the food system impacts on a number of urban development issues such as poverty, unemployment and poor health. Informal traders meet the food needs of many poor urban households. However, supermarket chains are changing this, demanding particular policy and planning responses, writes Jane Battersby and Vanessa Watson in their latest paper for Nature, […]
The African Centre for Cities (ACC) is pleased to announce that researcher James Duminy has been awarded the Joseph Arenow Prize for the best PhD thesis for 2017 in the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment (EBE), University of Cape Town. His thesis, entitled ‘Scarcity, Government, Population: The Problem of Food in Colonial Kenya’, […]
ACC’s Jane Battersby is among the new members of the Global Nutrition Report‘s Independent Expert Group (IEG). The IEG members were selected to bring the right mix of expertise and fresh perspectives to the Global Nurtrition Report in 2018 and beyond. The IEG as a whole represents individual members’ expertise in research, programming, data and […]
The South African, and wider African, food system is undergoing a rapid transformation, with an associated transformation in nutrition. (more…)
ACC launches a new IDRC-funded project called Nourishing Spaces which investigates urban food systems in the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in South Africa, Kenya and Namibia.
African Centre for Cities Senior Researcher, Dr Jane Battersby was honoured as the 2017 laureate of the Premio Daniel Carasso at a ceremony in Valencia, Spain on 18 May. The international prize, first presented in 2012 by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation is awarded every two years in recognition of outstanding scientific research into […]
Food is fundamental not only to well-being, but to our social and economic lives. Despite this, one of the biggest challenges facing many people in cities all over the world today is hunger. As cities rapidly urbanise, different pressures are placed on the food system which has resulted in the least nutritious food being the […]
Urban food systems have increasingly been recognised as a topic that needs to be better understood, in order to address issues of urban food security and urban poverty. This is particularly so in Africa, which has high rates of urban population growth and high levels of urban food insecurity. There has, however, been surprisingly little work on examining […]
