AfriFOODlinks aims to address the systemic underpinnings of food insecurity and environmental impact, to lead to real transformation. AfriFOODlinks views urban food environments as the key arena for improving nutrition and reducing environmental impact in African cities. This is because food environments are where residents make the choices about the food they eat and it is where the food security priorities of food availability, access, agency, utilization and stability manifest. AfriFOODlinks proposes to influence three key drivers of food environment form, function and dynamics. These are Infrastructure Investment, Social and Cultural Preference & Business Innovation.
AfriFOODlinks aims to improve food and nutrition security while delivering positive outcomes for climate and the environment, and building socio-ecological resilience in 65+ cities by:
1) promoting public shifts to sustainable healthy diets;
2) transforming urban food environments through real-world socio-technical experiments;
3) promoting inclusive multi-actor governance to empower public officials, established and informal small businesses, communities, youth and women with ownership and agency to shape their food systems; and
4) accelerating innovative, women- and youth-led agri-food businesses to support local value addition and inclusive economic participation.
AfriFOODlinks invests in direct food system change in 5 African Hub Cities and invites 10 African and 5 European Sharing Cities to join them on a mutual-learning journey, to share their innovative food systems work and to co-design pilot projects for implementation in each Sharing City. Through a diverse set of AfriFOODlinks interventions, these cities will become beacons of inspiration for urban food systems transitions across the continent. Novel practices, methodological guides, and public awareness toolkits will be developed and shared with 45+ Network Cities in Africa, Europe and Global South regions, who can adopt, adapt and replicate outcomes.
The partner cities include Cape Town, Kisumu, Mbale, Ouagadougou and Tunis as Hub Cities, with Arusha, Antananarivo, Quelimane, Dakar, Lusaka, Windhoek, Tamale, Bukavu, Chefchaouen, Lisbon, Milan, Montpellier, Bruges and Turin as Sharing Cities.
