SOUTH AFRICA
As a result of its vibrant economy and democratic establishments, South Africa has become a leading destination for migrants from across Africa and beyond. A wide range of international migrants, both documented and undocumented, have settled in the country, including economic migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees. While the exact number of international migrants is contested, the 2022 South African Census estimated their population to exceed 2.4 million. The top migrant-sending countries in South Africa include Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Malawi, the United Kingdom and Ethiopia. Income earned by international migrants in South Africa is crucial in supporting their families back home through remittances. Outbound remittances from South Africa exceeded US$1 billion in 2023, a figure that would be substantially higher if informal flows were included. International migrants in South Africa face numerous challenges, including discrimination, workplace exploitation and limited access to education, healthcare, and other services due to their nationality or undocumented status. Moreover, food insecurity poses a significant challenge in the country. Food insecurity exacerbates challenges for international migrants, especially the undocumented ones, amid declining economic conditions. These migrants often have limited or no access to social relief programs or grants, exacerbating their vulnerability to food insecurity and other hardships.
RESEARCH on SOUTH AFRICA
MiFOOD PAPERS
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Migrant Networks, Food Remittances, and Zimbabweans in Cape Town: A Social Media Perspective
This study examines the evolving connection between migrant networking on social media and cross-border food remittances in Southern Africa. Emerging research and academic debates have shown that social media platforms transform migration networks. But the role and link between migrant remittances and social media are generally overlooked and neglected. This paper contributes to the ongoing debates by examining the role of social media as a valuable networking tool for food-remitting Zimbabwean migrants. The research is founded on a mixed-methods approach, ...
Cross-Border Food Remittances and Mobile Transfers: The Experiences of Zimbabwean Migrants in Cape Town, South Africa
Mobile transfers have become a defining feature of cross-border remittance transmission in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, recent studies on mobile transfers have mainly focused on cash remittances and need to pay more attention to mobile food transfers. This paper addresses this research gap on mobile food transfers by examining cross-border food remittances and mobile transfers by Zimbabwean migrants residing in Cape Town, South Africa, to their families and friends back home. In this paper, we seek to understand the factors ...
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 ...
Consuming Urban Poverty (CUP) Project: Governing Food Systems to Alleviate Poverty in Secondary Cities in Africa
The CUP project is funded by the UK DFID-ESRC Urban Poverty Programme and focuses on the relationship between urban poverty and secondary urbanization in Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe Africa as viewed through a food lens. The project is based at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, also a partner in the Hungry Cities Partnership. Learn More
Growing Informal Cities Project
GIC is funded by IDRC and is a partnership between SAMP, the African Centre for Cities (UCT), Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo and the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO). The project recently completed a three year program of research on migrant entrepreneurship and informal cross-border trade (including in the food sector) in four African cities. Learn More
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
Refugee Economic Impacts in South African Cities
This UNHCR-funded project examined the urban survival strategies of informal sector refugee and South African-owned enterprises in Cape Town and Limpopo. Learn More (PDF)
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)
Assessing and Mitigating the Food Insecurity Consequences of COVID-19 Public Health Measures on Marginalized Refugees and Migrants in Canada, Latin America and Africa
Strategies to mitigate the public health impacts of COVID-19 have led to a secondary pandemic of global food insecurity. Our project will ‘scale up’ our First Round CIHR Grant on the negative impacts of COVID-19 on household food security in Wuhan and Nanjing, China to three additional cities: Quito (Ecuador), Cape Town (South Africa) and Kitchener-Waterloo (K-W) (Canada). This CIHR-funded project will have a particular focus on the food insecurity experience of marginalized immigrant and refugee populations during the pandemic ...
Assessing and Mitigating the Food Security Consequences of COVID-19 in China, Ecuador and South Africa
The proposed research will identify the immediate and longer-term impact of COVID-19 on household food security in cities, and will assess and improve fast-evolving social and policy countermeasures to enhance food security. Our research objectives are to: 1) Investigate the immediate food security challenges resulting from quarantine measures, unstable food supply, and fear of shopping in affected cities; 2) Assess how COVID-19 has impacted food security by longitudinal comparison with the baseline survey data collected through Hungry Cities Project; and ...
African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN)
AFSUN was founded in 2008 with funding from the Canadian Government’s University Partners in Cooperation and Development (UPCD) Tier One Program to conduct research, capacity-building and policy work on the relationship between rapid urbanization and food security in 9 countries and 11 cities in Southern Africa. The research themes and outputs are all available on the WLU website. Learn More
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
23. Assessing and Mitigating the Food Insecurity Consequences of COVID-19 on Marginalized Refugees and Migrants in Cape Town, South Africa
Adopting a mixed methods approach including surveys, key informant interviews, and participatory methods, the project will apply a gender-sensitive analysis to explore the food insecurity experiences of Somali, Congolese and Zimbabwean migrants and refugees during the COVID-19 pandemic in Cape Town, South Africa. It aims to provide critical decision-making and pandemic response data to local stakeholders and inform food policy responses. Data from this project will be compared with data from Kitchener-Waterloo in Canada and Quito in Ecuador.
COVID-19 and Food Security of Zimbabwean Migrants in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Harare
This project, conducted as part of the Queen Elizabeth Advanced Scholars program at Laurier has three elements: 1) a food security household survey of 500 Zimbabwean migrant households in Cape Town, South Africa; 2) a similar survey conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa and 3) in-depth qualitative interviews with cross-border informal food traders in Harare, Zimbabwe. The aim of the research conducted in 2021 is to provide an update on the food security status of migrant households (following earlier surveys by ...
BOOK CHAPTER
COVID-19 lockdown and peri-urban livelihoods: Migrants’ contribution to the South African food system
Mulugeta F. Dinbabo • In developed and developing countries, the livelihoods of a lot of people in peri-urban areas depend on the informal economy (Coulibaly & Li 2020; Farrington 2001; Harrison & McVey 1997). The informal economy is defined by all jobs relating to individuals or businesses not appropriately catered for by statute, practice, or structured arrangements. Such lack of formality often ensures that little of the ‘shadow’ economy is understood and, as such, is likely to be ignored during ...
THESES
The Evolving Role of Social Media in Food Remitting: Evidence from Zimbabwean Migrants in Cape Town, South Africa
— PhD Thesis — In the global South, food remittances play a significant role in the food and nutrition security of many households, especially low-income families. However, in the last two decades, debates and research on migration, remittances, and development have primarily focused on cash transfers. Non-cash remittances such as food transfers have received limited attention. The bias of being solely attentive to cash remittances is alarming. It conceals an in-depth and comprehensive grasp of food remittances' developmental and significant ...
Xenophobic citizenship, unsettling space, and constraining borders: Assembling refugee exclusion in South Africa’s everyday
— PhD Thesis — This dissertation investigates how myriad actors, including the state, citizens, civil society, refugees, and the media, intersect to shape refugee experiences in urban centers in South Africa. Building on six months of ethnographic fieldwork, it focuses on refugee lived experiences in this context to determine the actors, their relations, processes, and factors that condition refugees’ everyday existence. This dissertation argues that we cannot understand refugee experiences in the urban context without attending to the relations among ...