NAMIBIA
Since independence in 1990, Namibian development planning and policies have focused more on internal migration than international migration. The abolition of mobility controls imposed by the South African apartheid state on Namibians led to a major increase in rural-urban migration and the rapid growth of urban areas throughout the country. Rapid urbanisation has posed many policy challenges including the growth of informal settlements, urban unemployment, growing poverty and food insecurity, and challenges of housing and service provision for the urban population.
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RESEARCH on NAMIBIA
MiFOOD PAPERS
JOURNAL ARTICLES
The Threat of COVID-19 on Food Security: A Modelling Perspective of Scenarios in the Informal Settlements in Windhoek
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 ...
Opportunity and Survival in the Urban Informal Food Sector of Namibia
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 ...
Food Insecurity, Dietary Patterns and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in Windhoek, Namibia
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 ...
RESEARCH PROJECTS
QES-AS Program: Governing Urban Food Systems in the Global South
The Hungry Cities Partnership has received a four-year (2017-2021) grant from the Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarships advanced scholars program to fund the exchange of doctoral, post-doctoral and early career scholars between Canada and partner cities. Learn More (PDF)
IPaSS: Informality, Inclusive Growth and Food Security in Cities of the Global South
This foundation project of the Hungry Cities Partnership is funded by the SSHRC and IDRC under the International Partnerships for Sustainable Societies Program (IPaSS). The project has facilitated the formation of an initial seven-city research and policy network across the Global South linked to researchers at five Canadian universities. The project has embarked on a five-year program of collaborative research on a variety of themes related to inclusive growth and the formal and informal urban food system in the study ...
South African Supermarkets and Food Security in African Cities
This project is being implemented by AFSUN, HCP and the University of Namibia in the HCP-affiliated city of Windhoek, Namibia. The pilot funded by Open Society Foundation South Africa is examining the implications of the supermarket revolution for poor urban communities in the informal settlements of Windhoek. Learn More
Nourishing Spaces
The African Centre for Cities, the HCP partner in South Africa, has launched a new IDRC-funded project which investigates urban food systems in the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in South Africa, Kenya and Namibia. Learn More
Migrants in Countries in Crisis (MICIC)
The African Centre for Cities, the HCP partner in South Africa, has launched a new IDRC-funded project which investigates urban food systems in the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in South Africa, Kenya and Namibia. Learn More (PDF)
Women Feeding Cities Project: Gender-Transformative, Resilient, and Sustainable Covid-19 Recovery of the Informal Food Sector in Secondary Cities
This project funded by IDRC will ‘scale-down’ our NFRF-funded Women Feeding Cities Project by focusing on these gaps in secondary cities of less than 500,000 in partner countries. Using a gender-responsive lens, we will investigate the multiple ways in which the Covid-19 crisis has disrupted the livelihoods of women in the informal food economy and the challenges and prospects for sustainable pandemic recovery in four secondary cities in partner countries: Xai Xai (Mozambique), Montego Bay (Jamaica), Oshakati (Namibia), and Tapachula ...
Women Feeding Cities Project: Building a Gender-Transformative, Resilient, and Sustainable Informal Food Sector for COVID-19 Recovery
This Hungry Cities Partnership (HCP) comparative international project is funded by NFRF. It will examine the food security impacts of COVID-19 on micro-enterprises owned by women in the informal urban food sector, their households and communities in four HCP cities: Maputo, Windhoek, Kingston (Jamaica) and Mexico City. It has four main objectives: (a) compare the impact of the pandemic and public health policies on women in the informal food sector in Africa and LAC; (b) examine the responses and strategies ...
Food, Urbanization, Environment and Livelihoods (FUEL)
AFSUN and the HCP have received a grant from the SSHRC Insight Grant program for a program of research, training and policy advocacy on food security in secondary cities in Malawi, Namibia and Cameroon. The FUEL project highlights the rapid transformation taking place in African secondary cities and its impact on food security, food systems, livelihoods, poverty, and governance. Defined broadly as cities with fewer than half a million inhabitants that are not a capital city, secondary cities are absorbing ...
Southern African Migration Programme (SAMP)
SAMP was founded in 1997 as a network of organizations in Southern Africa committed to advancing a regional migration and development agenda through research, training and advocacy. SAMP is an internationally-recognized leader in migration and development research in Africa and has been funded at various times by CIDA, UK-DFID, IDRC and the Open Society Foundation. SAMP is based at the IMRC at the Balsillie School and the University of Western Cape. Learn More
BOOK CHAPTER
Food Insecurity, Food Sourcing and Food Coping Strategies in the OOO Urban Corridor, Namibia
Ndeyapo Nickanor, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush • The urbanizing world population has seen increased food insecurity in urban spaces, a result of unsustainable food systems, growing inequalities and weak urban governance that lacks urban food strategies. To improve our knowledge of household strategies employed to survive in urban spaces, we conducted a household survey to examine the relationship between coping strategies, food insecurity and dietary diversity in the secondary cities corridor of Oshakati-Ongwediva-Ondangwa (OOO) in Northern Namibia. The data were ...
THESES
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