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 The
dramatic growth of urban populations in developing countries
provides both opportunities and risks for resource-poor
groups in urban and peri-urban environments. By 2020,
the global population is predicted to reach 7.6 billion
and 98% of the projected growth will take place in developing
countries. In particular, the developing world's urban
populations will double, reaching 3.4 billion. This
increase in the urban population poses great challenges
to food systems and how they are managed. Rapid urbanization
has led urban services to be stretched beyond their
limits, resulting in inadequate supplies of potable
water, sewage disposal and other necessary services.
Food legislation, regulation and enforcement are constantly
striving to reflect changing circumstances.
A feature of the urbanization
process has been the development of informal food supply
systems. Resource-poor groups have developed livelihood
strategies with limited capital assets to meet opportunities
in urban areas. This is typified by the increase in
ready-to-eat food prepared and sold by street food vendors.
However, while street food vending can be an effective
way of providing low cost nutrition to urban populations,
it can also pose risks to health, in particular for
the young, the elderly and those with HIV/AIDS.
A brief history of the projects
and how the approach evolved
 There
have been four projects on street food and informally
vended foods that have been funded by the DFID Crop
Post Harvest Programme. These projects have been either
managed or jointed managed by NRI in collaboration with
over 22 over partner organisations in Africa (Ghana,
Zambia and Zimbabwe) and South Asia (India). The first
project was a one year preliminary study in Accra,
Ghana (1999 to 2000). This was initially primarily a
food safety investigation but the project team decided
to focus resources on determining the importance of
the sector to the urban economy of Accra with a smaller
food safety survey. These findings were disseminated
to policy makers at the local and national government
level who subsequently formed a street food working
group consisting of policy makers in Ghana to provide
support to the sector and improve consumer health. This
project was followed by a second
one in Ghana (2002 to 2004) that sought to formalise
the development of the coalition partnership using the
innovation systems approach. This approach was a natural
progression from the earlier project and was also formerly
part of the DFID Crop Post Harvest Programme strategy
for research proposals. A third
project (2002 to 2004) on informal vended foods
was simultaneously funded by the programme in Zambia
and Zimbabwe. Coalition partnerships in Harare and Lusaka
sought to carryout action research to explore the issues
of government support for unlicensed vendors, economic
decline, rapid urbanisation, high unemployment and the
impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Recently a
fourth project (2005 to 2006) is seeking to combine
the experiences and knowledge gain previously in Ghana,
Zambia and Zimbabwe while at the same time introducing
a fourth coalition partnership in Kolkata (formerly
Calcutta), India. The four coalitions will use the ‘knowledge
management’ approach to explore ways that institutions
and organisations manage and share knowledge. They will
jointly develop a series of ‘modules’ that
document the food safety management approach developed
by the coalitions to facilitate other towns and cities
who wish to explore ways of improving the livelihoods
of vendors and consumer health.
Projects on street food and informally
vended foods
Publications
on Street Foods
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