The Political Economy of Urban Food Security in sub-Saharan Africa

THIS DISCUSSION PAPER addresses the lack of attention given to the question of urban food security and nutrition in the cities of sub-Saharan Africa, despite the renewed debate surrounding issues of urban development. It argues that whereas urban food problems commanded political attention in the 1970s and 1980s, the issue has lost political significance today. Whilst the problem often was one of outright food shortages and rapid price changes in the earlier periods, affecting large parts of the urban population simultaneously, the picture is different in the 1990s. The impact of structural adjustment, continued rapid growth and increased urban poverty makes the problem primarily one of lack of access by the urban poor. The paper suggests that "…the removal of major supply constraints has tended to close down the political debate, even at a time when access at the household or individual level is being reduced due to increased urban poverty.”

The paper reviews the issue of urban food insecurity in sub-Saharan African cities, generating a set of empirical questions for analyzing food and livelihood security. Issues explored include:
·the extent to which problems of aggregate food supplies in sub-Saharan African cities have been resolved;
·trends in real food prices, real income and formal safety nets over time;
·responses by the poor to falling purchasing power (in particular with regard to food prices), including the impact on household organization and the labour allocation of women;
·government responses to coping mechanisms at the household level;
·issues of conflict between the survival mechanisms of the poor and policies that urban managers and national policy makers believe are necessary to improve infrastructure, attract investment and lay the foundations for sustainable economic growth; and
·how and when strategies developed by low-income urban residents should be supported.

The questions raised in the report are at the centre of the debate on urban food security in the post-structural adjustment era, and are addressed through examples from Kampala (Uganda) and Accra (Ghana). The author argues that policy makers and political leaders must understand the way in which the urban poor organize themselves and gain access to basic requirements (of which food is the most demanding) in order to understand and intervene in urban poverty, and that urban policy should be encouraged to improve upon rather than suppress informal economic activities.