Abstract
Food security has been a global development agenda for several decades, and rightly so: nearly 945 million people were food insecure in 2005 and a decade later, this number declined to 784 million in 2014, only to rise to 821 million three years later in 2017. These global figures, however, mask variations in the extent of progress in different regions of the world. Progress towards achieving food security has been much slower in sub-Saharan Africa, and the region continues to be the worst hit by food insecurity. Furthermore, it is increasingly being recognised that food insecurity is prevalent in urban, and not just rural areas, and that the urban poor rather than the rural poor are particularly vulnerable, and at increased risk of being food insecure. Additionally, nutrition insecurity, a closely related component of food insecurity, is common among the urban poor and contributes to malnutrition. While several factors have been explored in trying to address the issue of food security, the potential role of foodscapes in urban spaces of Africa has been less researched. Recent evidence, however, indicates that foodscapes in urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa potentially contribute to food and nutrition insecurity, particularly among the urban poor. Addressing food and nutrition insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa will thus first require reframing the discourse about these issues from solely a rural to also an urban problem, and secondly improving access, especially availability of healthy and nutritious options that are also economically accessible, for vulnerable and at-risk groups; in particularly, the urban poor.
Highlights
Food security has been a global development agenda for several decades
Some of the worst-affected countries are in the sub-Saharan African region, where the Global Food Security Index shows the need for marked improvement in ensuring that people are food secure[3]
These findings indicate that the emergence of food deserts among the urban poor in sub-Saharan Africa pose additional risks of food and nutrition insecurity
Summary
Food security has been a global development agenda for several decades. International development frameworks such as the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indirectly addressed food security by focusing on ending hunger, while the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include a direct and specific focus on food security. The first target of SDG 2 sets to “by 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular, the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round”; the second target sets to “by 2030, end all forms of malnutrition, including achieving, by 2025, the internationally agreed targets on stunting and wasting in children under five years of age, and address the nutritional needs of adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and older persons”[1]. The paper further explores challenges to achieving food and nutrition security for the urban poor
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