Creating more resilient and equitable urban food systems in Southern Africa

The document outlines how various policy sectors—including agriculture, trade, land use, and energy—interconnect to influence urban food security in Southern Africa. It emphasizes that urban planners can improve food accessibility and resilience by designing food-sensitive infrastructure, optimizing transportation for fresh food, and allocating land for community gardens and markets. The note further advocates for inclusive governance, urging policymakers to engage informal food actors, such as street vendors, and diverse stakeholders through participatory workshops and capacity-building programs to ensure equitable food systems.

• Urban food systems in Southern Africa are influenced by a wide array of interconnected policies, including agricultural policies to reduce import dependence, trade policies affecting affordability via tariffs and quotas, and energy policies that determine access to electricity and gas for cooking and refrigeration.
• Urban planners can enhance food system resilience by implementing food-sensitive infrastructure and transportation strategies, such as prioritizing the movement of fresh food in road design and investing in market facilities like water points, lighting, and stormwater drainage.
• Land use planning is a critical tool for ensuring food access, specifically through the allocation of land for community-led markets, urban farms, and community gardens, as well as zoning that supports small-scale food processing.
• Climate resilience in urban food systems can be improved by deploying green infrastructure, such as solar lighting and rainwater harvesting tanks, and by incorporating the perspectives of those most vulnerable to climate change into policy-making.
• Achieving equitable food systems requires inclusive policy formulation and the formal recognition of informal food system actors, including street vendors and open-air market vendors, through dedicated forums and participatory workshops.
• Low- to middle-income urban households in the region face high food insecurity driven by the economic pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, food price shocks from supply chain disruptions, and climate variability affecting production.

APA

Global Resilience Partnership (2023). Creating more resilient and equitable urban food systems in Southern Africa. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/sara_policy-note_21nov.pdf

Chicago

Global Resilience Partnership. Creating more resilient and equitable urban food systems in Southern Africa. 2023. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/sara_policy-note_21nov.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Global Resilience Partnership |title=Creating more resilient and equitable urban food systems in Southern Africa |date=July 2023 |url=https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/sara_policy-note_21nov.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{globalresiliencepartnership2023creating, author = {{Global Resilience Partnership}}, title = {{Creating more resilient and equitable urban food systems in Southern Africa}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, year = {2023}, month = jul, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/sara_policy-note_21nov.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }