Urbanisation and food security: who is being left behind?

Urbanisation is, without doubt, a complex phenomenon. It is one of the twenty-first century’s most transformative trends, marked by a relentless increase in the absolute numbers of urban population, an expansion of the built environment, and the changing of norms, cultures and lifestyles. It's therefore not surprising that urbanisation itself brings about considerable sustainability challenges in many key areas including food security.

Cities are at the centre of delivering the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [1], given that more than half of the world's population already reside in urban areas and this proportion is expected to increase to 68% by 2050 [2]. Common sense will tell us that as the world becomes more urbanised, the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals depends increasingly on the successful management of urban settlements.

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What challenges are present at the intersection between urbanisation and food security when working to 'leave no one behind?

This question will be explored against the backdrop of the following key contextual factors:

1. The numbers of the urban poor, food insecure and malnourished are likely to increase in the current recessionary context;

2. Low-income and lower-middle income countries in Asia and Africa will absorb almost 90 percent of the projected world’s urban population growth between now and 2050 [2];

3. Poverty is already moving from rural to urban areas in some regions [3]; and

4. The world has not generally progressed towards ensuring access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food for all people all year round or to eradicating all forms of malnutrition; on the contrary, it has moved backwards [4].

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How is urbanisation failing to secure food security for the urban poor?

Poverty, social and economic exclusion must come to an end as the world embarks on the project to “leave no one behind”. Poverty erodes the right to adequate food, and it has been found that the decline in poverty is faster in rural than in urban areas, making it harder to combat food insecurity in an urbanising world [3].

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• Sufficient and healthy food is beyond the reach of the urban poor

Generally, food in urban areas is plentiful and available in a variety of forms. As a result, food insecurity in cities has traditionally been perceived as less of a problem. However, abundance of food does not mean that everyone has access to healthy, diverse, safe and affordable diets [5]. Poor urban residents are at risk of consuming low-quality food [6]; and it is very well-known that inadequate access to nutritious food fuels the vicious cycle of poverty, increasing the risks of long-term consequences for cognitive development, economic productivity and related non-communicable diseases [7].

The linkage between urbanisation and inadequate food access resonates with what Amartya Sen (1981) has named the ‘entitlement failure’: the lack of money needed to purchase food within a cash-based urban economy, where the vast majority of urban dwellers buy their food rather than grow it.

‍For the urban poor, food often accounts for a large share of their total expenditure. Research into 20 low and middle-income countries found that extremely poor urban households spend on average more than 50% of their budget on food [3] [8]. This reliance on purchased food means that stable income and food affordability decisively affect food security in urban settlements [5].

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Accordingly, the entitlement failure can result either in the stubborn problem of micronutrient deficiencies and persistent child undernutrition, or in the alarmingly rapid rise in overweight and obesity that has been observed in the last decades – the so-called double burden of malnutrition, which is now more prevalent in urban areas compared to rural areas [3].

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This relationship can be better understood in consideration of the dietary transition that countries with high rates of urbanisation are going through. Although it is true that the aggressive marketing of energy-rich and nutrient-poor processed foods hits households across the entire income distribution, it is the urban poor who tend to overconsume high-energy processed food due to its affordability and accessibility. As a consequence, the overall burden of obesity and chronic diseases is today greater in developing countries than in developed countries, where it once was considered to be a health problem related to economic affluence [6].

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Additionally, further exposure to health risks in relation to the consumption of unhealthy foods derives from the fact that the poorer urban residents heavily rely on street vendors with precarious sanitation measures.  In slums, the lack of hygiene is even more pressing, making it almost impossible to prevent contamination of food [7].

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From a gender perspective, the changes in types of employment brought about by urbanisation, particularly for women, constitute another factor that accounts for poor diets. Due to shifting gender roles, women spend more hours at work; which is more likely to be in the form of self-employment in the informal economy. Consequently, there is a growing need to reduce cooking time, considering the burden that women bear in regard to family care responsibilities. Because of time scarcity and low income, many poor households opt for ready-to-eat, ultra- processed foods. Nutritionally speaking, such meals cannot replace traditional diets, which take longer time to prepare, and require access to cooking equipment, electricity, refrigeration, and safe water; conditions that may be absent for the poorer urban families [3].

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• Social capital is less accessible to the urban poor

In addition to the above-mentioned constraints, urban social safety nets programs, such as the provision of targeted cash, food transfers, or vouchers for nutritious foods to poor urban households, are not as widely accessible as commonly perceived [3].  This lack of attention is due to the general assumption that urban dwellers have better access to the labour markets and the basic social services that are expected to come with urbanisation, therefore, governments tend to focus on providing social assistance in rural areas [9].

In the absence of formal protection mechanisms, the urban poor could resort to their social connections to protect themselves against risk and vulnerability. However, it was found that among urban residents safety nets from extended family networks, or informal neighbours groups are less sturdy than those of their rural counterparts. The reasons for this are multifold: weaker identification with the community, especially when residence is temporary; higher levels of violence in urban settlements, as well as the fact that family members may end up living apart from each other [3]. These limited possibilities for public and social support in times of hardship, coupled with the need to use cash for food, substantially worsen the food insecurity of the urban poor.

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Conclusion

There is an undeniable and growing urgency to integrate the nutritional needs of poor urban residents in urban and territorial planning, if no one is to be left behind and if cities are to fulfil their social function. Notwithstanding the recognition that urbanisation has been fundamental to ideas of development, it can exacerbate food insecurity, making it harder to overcome.

Undoubtedly, climate change can further hinder access to sufficient, nutritious and safe food for the urban poor, by creating disruptions along the whole food supply chain. Understanding how these pressures on food security interact with each other can shed light on the type of policy, and technological or social innovations needed for fair and equitable food systems.  

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‍The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors.

‍About the author: Elisa Alemán Vásquez is a Master’s student in International Development at Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). Her research addresses the challenges of sustainability that are present in the relationship between globalisation and processes of uneven development.

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References and further reading

[1] López Moreno, E. (2017). Concepts, definitions and data sources for the study of urbanization: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Sustainable Cities, Human Mobility and International Migration. New York

[2] United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2019). World Urbanization. Prospects 2018: Highlights (ST/ESA/SER.A/421)

[3] Ruel, M., Garrett, J., & Yosef, S. (2017). Food security and nutrition: Growing cities, new challenges. In 2017 Global Food Policy Report. Chapter 3. 24-33. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Visit Link

[4] FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO. 2022. In Brief to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2022. Repurposing food and agricultural policies to make healthy diets more affordable. Rome, FAO. Visit Link

[5] Ruel, M. (2020, October 14). Growing cities, growing food insecurity: How to protect the poor during rapid urbanization. Center for Strategic and International Studies. Retrieved June 17, 2022, from Visit Link

[6] Szabo, S. (2016). Urbanization and Food Insecurity Risks: Assessing the Role of Human Development. Oxford Development Studies, 44(1), 28-48. Visit Link

[7] Ezeh, A., Oyebode, O., Satterthwaite, D., Chen, Y. F., Ndugwa, R., Sartori, J., ... & Lilford, R. J. (2017). The history, geography, and sociology of slums and the health problems of people who live in slums. The Lancet, 389(10068), 547-558. Visit Link

[8] Tacoli, C. (2017). Food (In)Security in Rapidly Urbanising, Low-Income Contexts. International journal of environmental research and public health, 14(12), 1554. Visit Link

[9] World Food Program. (2016). WFP and Urban Safety Nets. Maximizing food security and nutrition. [PDF file]. Retrieved June 20, 2022, from Visit Link

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