Cities Farming for the Future Program

Urban Agriculture at The Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa

City Updates: Bulawayo | Cape Town | Ndola | CFF-Products-2005-08

The Cities Farming for the Future (CFF) is a global programme that seeks to integrate agriculture into urban development. The Programme is coordinated globally by the Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF) and funded by Directorate-General for International Cooperation, Netherlands (DGIS) and the International Development Research Center, Canada (IDRC). The Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDPESA) is responsible for managing the programme in the region. The main objective of this programme is to contribute to urban poverty reduction, urban food security, improved urban environmental management, empowerment of urban farmers and participatory city governance by capacity development of local stakeholders in urban agriculture and facilitating participatory and multi-stakeholder policy formulation and action planning on urban agriculture, including safe reuse of urban organic wastes and wastewater.

Focus Themes and Objectives

The main focus of the CFF programme include:

• Urban agriculture and local economic development and poverty alleviation

• Urban agriculture, food security and nutrition (also in relation to HIV-AIDS)

• Integration of urban agriculture in land use planning

• Safe use of urban organic wastes and wastewater in urban agriculture

• Mainstreaming of gender in urban agriculture

The specific objectives of CFF include:

• Consolidation of the seven regional Resource centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security

• Knowledge management: responding to specific information needs of various categories of local stakeholders in UPA

• Capacity Development in local partner organisations

• Multi-stakeholder Policy design and Action Planning (MPAP) in the 20 pilot cities globally

• Gender mainstreaming in UPA

• Establishment of effective monitoring mechanisms 

Global Coverage

Globally the RUAF seven partners are implementing the CFF programme in seven regions globally as follows:

• IPES (regional coordination Latin America and the Caribbean
   

• IAGU (regional coordination francophone West-Africa)
   

• IWMI-West Africa (regional coordination Anglophone West-Africa)
   

• MDP (regional coordination Eastern and Southern Africa)
   

• IWMI-South Asia (regional coordination South and South East Asia)
   

• IGSNRR-CAS (regional coordination China)
   

• ESDU-AUB (regional coordination North Africa & Middle East)

The 20 pilot cities where the programme is being implemented include:

• Latin America: Lima, Belo Horizonte, Bogota
   

• Francophone West Africa: Dakar, Bobo Dialasso, Porto Novo
   

• Anglophone West Africa: Accra, Freetown, Ibadan
   

• South & East Africa: Bulawayo, Cape Town, Ndola
   

• South & South East Asia: Hyderabad, Bangalore, Gampaha
   

• China: Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai
   

• Middle East and Northern Africa: Amman, Sa’ana

 Coverage in Eastern and Southern Africa

In the Eastern and Southern Africa region The CFF program covers three pilot cities namely; Bulawayo, Zimbabwe; Ndola, Zambia; and Cape Town, South Africa. In addition to the pilot cities there are ten dissemination cities which include Harare, Lilongwe, Blantyre, Gaborone, Maputo, Msunduzi, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Nakuru, Kampala, and Kitwe.

Approach

The main approach being used under the CFF is the Multi-Stakeholder Policy and Action Planning (MPAP). All key stakeholders will participate at all stages of the project i.e. agenda setting, issue identification, design, decision making and implementation in policy formulation. The MPAP process is being led by a core group in each city that is made up of key partners drawn from the participating local authority, NGOs, research organizations and civil society. This core group reports to a larger group, the UA Stakeholder Forum and to the relevant council committees.

Activities

Several activities have been undertaken in each city in order to achieve the stated objectives. These include:

1. Training workshops and seminars. This will include training in the MPAP process and other identified areas of need.

2. Situation Analysis on urban agriculture in each city

3. Formation of UA Stakeholder Forums This forum will be critical in driving the MPAP process in each city.

4. Development of urban Agriculture Strategic Agenda in each city

5. Exchange visits will be undertaken as part of the capacity development agenda.

6. Implementation of pilot projects in each pilot city

7. Documentation and information exchange. The main processes and results of activities carried out in the pilot cities will be meticulously documented so that they provide lessons for other cities in the region.
    

Pilot Projects Competitive Bidding

A call for the development of pilot cities in the region will also be included as part of the CFF. Cities and other interested can apply. For more information click: Call for Competitive bidding