cities

Accelerating the transition to food security
All of the cities’ IDPs include programmes related to food security, but monitoring and evaluation
(M&E) are needed, to assess whether or not the programmes have been successfully implemented.
For instance, effective M&E in the case of Johannesburg’s Food Resilience Urban Agriculture Support
Programme indicates that it will require more funding in order to achieve its objectives.
Figure 5.14 highlights two distinct hunger seasons when vulnerable households struggle to access
sufficient food: (i) in January, as a result of households overspending on food during the festive season
and having to cover other expenses, such as school fees; in addition, most businesses close down over
December and January, reducing income and casual labour opportunities. (ii) In June, as a result of
adverse weather conditions in winter that prevent industries from operating at full capacity, thus
employing less manual labour, which means that poor households have lower incomes. This pattern
has significant health implications, particularly for individuals on chronic medication who require
consistent nutrition. Therefore, social safety nets are needed to respond to these predictable times of
food insecurity.
Figure 5.14: Months of inadequate household food provisioning: Cape Town, Msunduzi,
and Johannesburg
80%
70%
60%
50%
5
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC
Source: SACN (2015b)
JHB CPT MSU
SUSTAINABLE CITIES 187