12 November 2013 Urban Food Security - Local and international measurement challenges Dr Jane Battersby, UCT/AFSUN

AFSUN 11 City findings

SANHANES 1(MRC,HSRC)

A rural framing ✤ ‘One of the primary objectives... is to overcome rural food insecurity by increasing the participation of rural food insecure households in productive agriculture sector activities’ (Department of Agriculture 2002, 28 ✤ Likewise, the ANC’s 2009 Election Manifesto listed food security as one of its five priority areas, but also coupled food insecurity with rural development (ANC 2009). ✤ Food security priority area of the NPC described as “food security, water security and rural development.” (Manuel 2012)

Some questions ✤ What are we measuring and why? ✤ How does how we aggregate data shape how we understand the data? ✤ Is the household scale sufficient as a scale of analysis?

What is the purpose of the measurement? ✤ Definitions are informed by a set of broader values. Definitions and their related measurement approaches frame policy responses and the imagined sets of possibilities to address the problem as it is framed by the data. ✤ What do current measurement approaches reveal and what to they obscure? What kinds of policy responses do they make viable and what other kinds might they limit?

A question of aggregation ✤ “Gauteng and the Western Cape are wealthier provinces with the least number of poor households at less than 12% each” (IFSS 2002, 22)

No. HH <R600 ✤ Gauteng (6.1% all households) = ✤ Northern Cape (21.7% all households) =

Sampling strategy ✤ Across whole city or within particular areas ✤ Comparability and generalizability vs. context-rich case study

Is the household scale sufficient?

Conclusions ✤ Although food insecurity is experienced at the household scale, its drivers are also beyond the household scale, particularly in the urban. ✤ Need for indicators that can engage the broader environment to open up new policy and strategy options.