Foodscapes in urban spaces of Africa: implications for food and nutrition security among the urban poor

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.