UCAZ and TARSC in EQUINET with review input from Ministry of Health and Child Care (implemented work in 2022-23 to gather and share evidence on initiatives underway in Zimbabwean cities/ towns to promote healthy food systems, to share and promote uptake of promising practice. Chegutu is one of the urban case studies, using a collectively developed shared framework. In 2018, nearly half (49%) of Chegutu’s urban population was food insecure, compared to the national urban average of 37%, and compared to 31% in 2016. The situation was worsened by the impact of COVID-19, with lockdowns and interrupted economic activities undermining urban household access food and basic services. The local authority with partners has implemented an Urban Resilience Building Program, where community members were capacitated with startup and skills training in sustainable livelihood value chains in agriculture and nutrition, water and sanitation, and in financial literacy and social protection. Two areas of food systems, poultry production and peanut butter processing, implemented by the Shasha Community Group are detailed in this case study, with other initiatives on the food system.
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UCAZ and TARSC in EQUINET with review input from Ministry of Health and Child Care (implemented work in 2022-23 to gather and share evidence on initiatives underway in Zimbabwean cities/ towns to promote healthy food systems, to share and promote uptake of promising practice. Harare is one of the urban case studies, using a collectively developed shared framework. In Harare city 13.7 % of children under 18 years are poor, and 2,2% food poor, living in households that are below the poverty datum line The city’s food supply comes from food industries located in the city and other urban areas of Zimbabwe, and food imported from other countries. Fresh fruits and vegetables are mostly obtained from the people’s markets, shops, hawkers, unlicensed vendors and from production in resident’s back yards for home consumption and sometimes for sale to supplement incomes. The City Health Department’s Environmental Health Division conducts regular monitoring to ensure the food sold to the Harare public is safe, from the planning stage of buildings where food will be handled, through to food handlers, informal food vendors and food business operators. Community Services officers and agricultural extension (Agritex) officers train women groups in high density areas of the city on food-related skills, including cooking, baking, fish farming and mushroom growing. The city convenes competitions involving preparation and cooking of traditional foods by women from the community groups. A range of traditional foods and dishes are showcased, including boiled roundnuts, peanuts, cowpeas, whole maize grain (mutakura in Shona), and dried vegetables (mufushwa) with peanut butter. The case study outlines these and other practices in the city.
UCAZ, TARSC in EQUINET, with review input from Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) implemented work in 2022-23 to gather and share evidence on initiatives underway in Zimbabwean cities/ towns to promote healthy food systems. Kariba is one of the urban case studies, using a collectively developed shared framework. Kariba is a small tourist resort town in north-eastern Zimbabwe near the border with Zambia and is located in a National Parks area. The town was initially developed to house workers involved in the construction of Lake Kariba on the Zambezi River for hydro-electricity generation. Most of the food consumed in Kariba town is sourced from far away as farming around the town is not viable because of wildlife. Kariba town is located on a border, raising the challenge of managing cross-border trade and food imports. While there are challenges to urban agriculture and local food processing in Kariba, noted earlier, there are also a number of initiatives to promote health food options in the town, including aquaculture, hydroponics, and recycling of bio-waste to support urban agriculture. The Municipality is also represented in cross-border dialogue mechanisms, such as a Technical Committee between Zimbabwe and Zambia on Kapenta fishing in Lake Kariba. This case study outlines the various processes underway.
UCAZ and TARSC in EQUINET with review input from Ministry of Health and Child Care (implemented work in 2022-23 to gather and share evidence on initiatives underway in Zimbabwean cities/ towns to promote healthy food systems, to share and promote uptake of promising practice. Kwekwe is one of the urban case studies, using a collectively developed shared framework. Kwekwe city in Zimbabwe’s Midlands region is in a mining and industrial area. Over half of the city population are self-employed in the informal economy, with activities including open food preparation and sale, vending farm produce, and grocery tuck shops. Kwekwe City Council has made several urban food system interventions described in this case study, including constructing farm produce/vegetable markets in over 15 locations in the city. In 2010, Council entered into a public-private ‘build-own-operate-transfer’ (BOOT) partnership with a local company to build shops to accommodate small to medium businesses, including for food vending and processing. The city health department established an environmental health post in 2021 to monitor and ensure food hygiene and health standards, and has set enabling legislation for this.
UCAZ and TARSC in EQUINET with review input from Ministry of Health and Child Care implemented work in 2022-23 to gather and share evidence on initiatives underway in Zimbabwean cities/ towns to promote healthy food systems, to share and promote uptake of promising practice. Masvingo is one of the urban case studies, using a collectively developed shared framework. Masvingo is one of the oldest cities in Zimbabwe. Food security in Masvingo city, as for the wider country, has been affected by drought, economic challenges and household poverty, with the COVID-19 pandemic adding to this. Ultra-processed foods such as sweetened drinks, crisps, sweets, and other foods containing high levels of sugar, fats, salt and additives are mainly imported into the city. The city identifies urban agriculture as one of the important livelihood strategies for many urban residents and a method for alleviating poverty and improving household food security. To facilitate multi-sectoral broad-based collaborative approaches, the local authority identified open spaces to be used for agricultural purposes, and set aside land for this within the city. The council is implementing the various activities outlined in this case study brief, making resources such as land available for urban agriculture, engaging non-state agencies to collaborate on infrastructure for initiatives, and community members to collaborate on interventions. Having a Council policy helps to align different actors and personnel.
Delegates at the EQUINET Regional Meeting on urban health in east and southern Africa noted that rising urbanization, including around extractives, with increasing commercial and climate impacts calls for us to move from single issue interventions to comprehensive, integrated, area-based approaches for urban health; and to shift from project- to process-thinking, designing for sustainability from the onset. Promising practices are taking place locally, but need to be scaled up. Scale-up is enabled when practices link social and economic benefit; when they mobilise public and institutional resources, including collective savings and innovation funds, and facilitate local technology development. Inequity in the burdens of climate change makes these multi-actor, holistic approaches even more critical, for our eyes to shift from effects to root causes, from a focus on technocrats to communities, and from reactive emergency responses to climate to sustained, integrated long term approaches. The meeting report outlines the experiences and proposals for action raised by delegates from diverse ESA countries, levels, institutions, disciplines, skills to improve urban health in ESA countries.
This video of a poem by Desire Moyo presented on the last day of the EQUINET conference captured some of the aspirations and ideas covered in the three days of the conference and in the resolutions for action. Halala!
EQUINET conferences have provided an opportunity for different communities and areas of focus to interact, and have given guidance to our work, organisation and networking on health equity in East and Southern Africa. In 2022 EQUINET held a regional conference. Challenging a neoliberal mantra that there are no alternatives to policies that create social deficits and injustice, and sharing the ideas and creativity of our region, the 2022 conference shared and discussed experiences, evidence, analysis, successes and struggles from local to regional level and engagement globally to advance health and wellbeing in East and Southern Africa. Through the exchanges, delegates framed propositions to advance health equity and social justice in our region. The EQUINET Conference was held online in three and a half days, each day a month apart, with each of the three full days covering one of the EQUINET strategic directions - Reclaiming the resources for Health, Reclaiming the state, and Reclaiming collective agency and solidarity in health - with a final half-day - Organising regionally for health equity - on how EQUINET organises and what it does to take the strategic directions forward. You can now watch the videos of the presentations on each of the 4 conference days, from opening speeches from diverse leaders in and beyond the region, EQUINET, regional and international presenters, musicians and artists, reports of discussions and finally a closing speech from WHO AFRO.
This video pechakucha of photographic images tells the story of EQUINET's journey from its formation in 1998 to the current date. It shows the many places, people, areas and forms of work EQUINET has been involved in.
Work was implemented in 2022 in EQUINET to gather evidence on promising practice aimed at addressing urban health equity and wellbeing in east and southern Africa (ESA to contribute to learning within the ESA region and to share and exchange with other regions. This report presents the work carried out in the ESA region through a desk review of online documents and case studies from selected cities, of areas of promising practice. It shares insights and learning from the findings on practices that promote urban wellbeing and health equity. Collectively, the initiatives have yielded a range of outcomes and changes. In terms of processes for equity-oriented change in urban wellbeing, the report outlines a mix of interventions and tools that promote both participatory and recognitional equity as pivotal to change. Many of the insights generated relate to the design of initiatives and the efforts made to stimulate cross sectoral, multi-stakeholder inputs as a response to the multi-dimensional nature of the drivers of inequality and deprivation. The report notes, however, that initiatives need to connect beyond the local level if they are to have more impact on the structural dimensions of equity, and points to national level inputs that appear to be important to sustain and support such local level practice.