NAMIBIA

Rapid urbanisation and food system transformation in Africa have been accompanied by growing food insecurity, reduced dietary diversity, and an epidemic of non-communicable disease. While the contribution of wild and indigenous foods (WIF) to the quality of rural household diets has been the subject of longstanding attention, research on their consumption and role among urban households is more recent. This paper provides a case study of the consumption of WIF in the urban corridor of northern Namibia with close ties ...

Food security measurement is of paramount importance as it guides governance, policy formulation and intervention projects targeting and monitoring and evaluation. The measurement of food insecurity has proven to be a difficult task owing to the multi-dimensionality of the construct and different measurements have been developed to measure different dimensions of food insecurity. However, it is difficult to apply the different measurements to a holistic food security measurement as their classification might not agree. The current study proposes a composite ...

Due to the heterogeneity among households across locations, predicting the impacts of stay-at-home mitigation and lockdown strategies for COVID-19 control is crucial. In this study, we quantitatively assessed the effects of the Namibia government’s lockdown control measures on food insecurity in urban informal settlements with a focus on Windhoek, Namibia. We developed three types of conditional regression models to predict food insecurity prevalence (FIP) scenarios incorporating household frequency of food purchase (FFP) as the impacting factor, based on the Hungry ...

Literature on participation in the informal food sector in cities of the Global South is conventionally characterized by a survivalist or opportunistic perspective. The main difference is that opportunists, in contrast to survivalists, are motivated by entrepreneurial choice rather than necessity and see opportunities for economic and social advancement in the sector. Recent studies in Brazil and India conclude that research on informal sector participation requires a “both/and” rather than “either/or” approach. The main problem this paper addresses is whether ...

This paper investigates the relationship between dietary patterns and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Windhoek based on data from a cross-sectional random sample of 863 households. We identify three major dietary patterns: starch–sugar–oil, fruits–vegetables, and meat–fish, which explain more than 43% of the variation in food consumption. High uptake levels of starch–sugar–oil diets are associated with diabetes, and also increase heart problems. Females were at greater risk of cardio-vascular disease (CVD) and hypertension, while there is an increased risk of disease ...