idasa

Achieving Urban Food Security: Policy issues

Boipelo Freude Economic Governance Program

Tshwane Hunger Summit Kutlwanong Conference Center

Pretoria14-15 July 2009

idasa

Achieving Urban Food Security: Policy issues

• explain the need for policies aimed at improving urban food security.

• describe the main features of urban food security policies- in relation to the four main pillars of food security.

idasa

Introduction

Concern for eliminating food insecurity stems from both humanitarian and economic development reasons.

• Chronic undernutrition results in devastating losses of human life and also drains a country's productive capacity, thus limiting its chances for economic growth.

• A lack of access to food results in individuals or families having low energy reserves and poor health, reducing their capacity for work and income generation.

• In children, undernourishment contributes to a slowing of physical and mental development, thus jeopardizing the productive capacities of future generations.

idasa

Urban Food SecurityIssues:

• Reduced breastfeeding leading to kwashiorkor and diarrheal diseases

• Increased consumption of white bread and polished rice leading to reduced vitamin B intake and problems of beriberi.

• Shifts in consumer tastes towards wheat, rice, and maize, and away from more traditional staples such as sorghum and millet.

• Increased preference for more highly milled, but less-nutritious grain.

• More food eaten outside of the household (e.g. roadside stands).

• Greater preference for foods which are easy and quick to prepare.

idasa

Typical approaches to designing Food Security Policies:

• Incorporating FSP issues into other urban /national development policies and strategies.• Preparing a special Food Security Policy document.

Food Security Policies

Food Security Policy

idasa

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR FOOD SECURITY POLICIES

Physical AVAILABILITY of food

Economic and physical ACCESS to food

Food UTILIZATION

STABILITY of the other three dimensions over time

Food Security

Food insecurity exists if even one of these conditions is not met. Food Insecurity

idasa

1. Regulatory type - Rules, regulations and procedures to be set by public authorities and applied in policy implementation.

2. Programme type - Policy measures which are implemented through programme and project type approaches by government or non-governmental actors.

Sometimes there is a combination of the regulatory and programme types of policy measures

Policy Implementation

Types of Policy measures:

idasa

Policies to increase food supplies (availability)

Sources of food supplies:

• Urban and Peri-urban food production; and• Food trade with areas surrounding urban centers

Food availability can be increased by:

• Increasing food production by promoting urban and peri-urban agriculture.• Promotion of food marketing, food

trade.

idasa

Policies to improve access to food - poverty alleviation

Access refers to capacity of households and individuals to obtain the food they need.

FS and poverty alleviation policies will have to focus on:

urban employment and income generation, cash/food for work enhancing productive employment for the urban poor• Public transfers / social safety nets of vulnerable groups

idasa

Policies to improve utilization

Effective utilization = ability to utilize food maintaining its nutritive quality and making it available to the consumer.

It can be inhibited by:

• lack of knowledge about proper food preparation;• lack of knowledge about nutritional requirements;• diseases and poor health; • lack of hygiene, sanitation, safe drinking water.

idasa

• improving food preservation and preparation technologies;

• establishment of proper food standards;

• improving public health;

• provision of safe drinking water;

• improved sanitation; and

• hygiene and nutrition education.

Policies to improve utilization

Policy measures to improve utilization:

idasa

Instabilities in access and availability can result from:

• seasonal variations of food supplies as a result of inefficient urban food marketing systems;• rising food prices as result of inflation, depreciation in the exchange rate •Acute food shortages, as a result of natural or man made disasters

Policies to ensure stability of food supplies

idasa

Relevant policy measures for preventing temporary supply shortfalls are related to establishing a system of disaster preparedness and response, including a EWS and a set of measures to ensure food stability.

Policies to ensure stability of food supplies

idasa

strategic principles

1. Adopt an approach that is consultative, participatory, open-minded, alliance-seeking, and technically sound and involves the private sector;

2. Promote competition and reduce the influence of large intermediaries;

3. Leave to the private sector facilities and services that can best be run as businesses;

4. Encourage effective development that lowers the cost of living and stimulates employment growth in the city.

idasa

Conclusion

• Relevant and effective policies will emerge from a system of governance that connects the needs of the poor to a politically responsive local government that has the technical and institutional capacity to act.

Programs therefore should work to strengthen the poor’s ability to organize, make demands and affect local authorities and to strengthen the municipality’s understanding of its responsibility to respond.