Food insecurity continues to be one of the most pressing and immediate challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa. Just like many countries within the region, emerging evidence projects a grim picture for food security situation in Kenya for the first half of the year 2023. The dire food crisis is a manifestation of an underlying problem of a dysfunctional food system. While food insecurity has dominated discourses in the continent for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the magnitude of systemic weaknesses within the food systems in the country and across many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The shocks that accompanied and followed the Covid-19 pandemic, interacted with climate change challenges and geo-political conflicts with severe impacts on food production and access to agricultural inputs, food processing and logistics, markets, livelihood security and household nutrition. The nature and extent of these impacts is projected to have long-term effects, particularly on the resilience of inherently vulnerable groups such as women, children, elderly, people living with disabilities, pastoralists, agro-pastoralists and smallholder farmers across the continent.
In response to these challenges, the Utafiti Sera Food Systems Transformation (FST) House seeks to contribute to the strengthening of equitable, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable food systems by enhancing capacity for policy engagement and evidence uptake targeted to strategic stakeholders with an impetus to build a systems perspective in the food value chain. The House activities is a response to IDRC’s 2020-2030 Strategy and mirrors Kenya’s Agenda 2030 and Big 4 Agenda, the AU Maputo declaration, and United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2, and 5. The FST House is supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
Using PASGR’s flagship Utafiti Sera Framework, the FST House is drawing on existing evidence on food systems in Kenya and stakeholder engagements to support existing evidence-policy pathways towards the realisation of affordable, high quality, safe and nutritious foods. The House brings together a diverse pool of stakeholders, ranging from state, non-state, and international actors with varying interests in the food value chain. These include farmers’ representatives (both small- and large-scale), state government officials, trade organizations and associations, private multi-national companies/producers, processors, brokers, wholesalers/retailers, agricultural workers and their associations, and consumer representatives among others. The FST House is seeking to strengthen existing evidence base in support of stakeholders’ efforts in change processes such as policy reforms.
Food systems transformation has dominated policy discourse globally as one of the effective ways for achieving optimal level of food security. This stem from the fact that most countries especially in the Global South have undergone a period of food insecurity in the last decade. While food insecurity has persistently haunted the African continent for decades, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and conflicts (e.g. the Russia-Ukraine war) have brought to light the inherent weaknesses within food systems in the continent, especially in the Sub-Saharan African nations[IFPRI, “Global Food Policy Report 2023: Rethinking Food Crisis Responses,” 2023]. COVID-19, pandemic along with lockdowns and travel restrictions, disrupted fresh food production, distribution, and consumption, exposing inherent vulnerabilities in our food systems[WFP, “The Lingering Impacts of COVID-19 on Food Security and Livelihoods across the Eastern Africa Region,” 2023].
Transforming food systems necessitates a systemic reflection of the multiplex interactions in food production, processing, distribution and consumption mediated by nutritional, social, environmental and economic outcomes. Although efforts have been made (policy interventions and programmes) by Kenyan government and private sector to ensure food security, food insecurity remains a challenge. While the policy inventions have been lauded, there is no known overarching right to food policy. The policies in the agricultural sector, land policy, planning, finance and other sectors that would contribute to the right to food security are not in sync. There is, therefore, an urgent need for policy framework/legal framework that would make multiple sector policies coherent. The polices have mainly focused on rain-fed traditional agriculture despite the adverse effects of climate change with unpredictable weather patterns leading to prolonged drought period.
The capacities for implementation of these policies and the scope of food system needs to be strengthened. An enabling policy environment for food recovery is lacking. High costs and lack of capacity impede food processing. Consequently, all these bottlenecks from farm-level have serious implications on food consumption patterns in the country, and ultimately the health of consumers. Given the current state of food insecurity in Kenya, prompt and coordinated action from policymakers and stakeholders is imperative. Only through collaborative efforts and holistic approaches can we construct a stronger and more equitable food system that exhibits resilience in the face of imminent challenges.
Country of Focus
Kenya (both national and county government)
Cities of Focus/Counties
Nairobi.
Host Organisation
The house is hosted by PASGR
House Resources/Outputs
Policy Briefs
Newspaper and media mention
Convening/Activities
Co-creation policy-driven stakeholder engagements to enhance the evidence uptake is the major focus of the house activities. To achieve this, the house organizes convening and forums where researchers and policy makers get to interact and engage in knowledge sharing on policy gaps, best practices and desired changes. Through the house co-creation stakeholder convenings, there is now a clear a road map for policy priorities in the food systems which is aimed to enhance food security and food safety in the country. For instance, the house is co-creating with the Nairobi City County to review their policy framework with a view to generating evidence for policy uptake at the national level.
Nairobi City County Government policy framework on Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries (UPALF) was developed in 2015 and since then, there have been numerous contextual and policy shifts key amongst them being the emergence of Food Systems Transformation as resilience frameworks. To align the policy to these frameworks, the FST House synthesised numerus evidence pathways for food systems in Nairobi. From the synthesis, it was clear that that food production and availability are often prioritized while important issues like food handling, transportation, and traceability are frequently overlooked, leading to significant safety concerns. It is important therefore to strengthen the food systems to ensure that food security encompasses both the availability and safety of food. Increased accountability is also necessary right from production, handling to consumption to enhance food safety and safety.
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