| E-mail bulletin
with news of the International Network of Resource Centres on
Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF). For an overview of
the partners in the RUAF network look
at the end of this bulletin.
In this bulletin you will find information on:
- The first half year of the RUAF-Cities Farming
for the Future programme
- Recent events (co-)organised by RUAF partners
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Workshop “Building Participative Municipal
Strategies for Urban Agriculture”, Lima, Peru |
| * |
Study visits and workshop “Urban Micro-farming and
HIV-AIDS”, Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa |
| * |
Study visit and Conference on Agro-tourism, Xingjian,
China |
- New Urban agriculture related projects initiated
by RUAF partners
| * |
Ensuring Health and Food Safety from Rapidly
Expanding Wastewater Irrigation in South Asia |
| * |
Sessions on urban agriculture at the World Urban Forum
2006 (Montreal, Canada) |
| * |
Urban Producers’ Organisations project |
| * |
Urban Agriculture Project in Istanbul, Turkey |
- Recent and upcoming publications by RUAF
| * |
Urban Agriculture Magazine no. 14 on Urban
Aquatic Production |
| * |
New RUAF book |
| * |
Call for contributions UA Magazine # 15 on Multi-functional
urban agriculture |
1.
THE FIRST HALF YEAR OF THE RUAF-CFF PROGRAMME
The RUAF partners have started the new phase of the RUAF programme,
named Cities Farming for the Future (CFF) (See
RUAF UPDATE # 4 or the RUAF web site www.ruaf.org
for more information on the RUAF-CFF programme.
RUAF-CFF gives emphasis on capacity development and on facilitating
multi stakeholder policy formulation and action planning on
urban agriculture.
To that effect, in each of the seven RUAF regions (Latin America,
Francophone West Africa, Anglophone West Africa, Southern and
East Africa, South and Southeast Asia, China and the Middle
East and Northern Africa) 3-4 pilot cities have been selected,
23 in total, which have shown a commitment to integrate urban
agriculture into their local policies and planning.
It is in these pilot cities that RUAF-CFF will concentrate
its main activities in the coming four years, including training
of local stakeholders, provision of support for local diagnosis
and participatory action planning, policy seminars and monitoring
of the impacts of such policies and programmes the livelihoods
of the urban poor.
In addition, 6-10 partner cities have been selected in each
region, 46 in total, that will exchange experiences with the
pilot cities through reports, study visits and participation
in training activities. For an overview of the selected cities
see the RUAF website (www.ruaf.org)
or the UA-Magazine # 14. RUAF will also continue its networking
and information dissemination activities, particularly through
the regional Resource centres on Urban Agriculture and Food
security.
Inception Workshop on Multi-stakeholder Action
Planning and Policy Making marks start of RUAF-CFF
The international and regional RUAF teams, together with representatives
of selected pilot cities) met in the Netherlands in April for
a two-week start-up workshop to officially kick off the new
phase of the RUAF programme and prepare for the first year of
CFF.
Different aspects of urban agriculture, policy development,
project formulation and monitoring, gender, and other relevant
issues were discussed.
Special attention was given to the preparation of the training
course for local stakeholders regarding the facilitation of
the multi-stakeholder processes for action planning and policy
design.
The regional RUAF teams also refined their activity plans for
2005.
Ongoing regional activities
The regional RUAF partners have been very busy this half year,
implementing the following activities:
- Cooperation agreements:
Provision of detailed information on the RUAF-CFF programme
to the local partners in the pilot cities, especially in the
pilot city where the RUAF activities will focus in this year;
Establishment of clear cooperation agreements with these local
partners, including the Municipal Council, relevant Departments,
local NGO’s, research and training institutes, farmer organisations
and other local stakeholders in Urban Agriculture, regarding
the realisation of the Multi-stakeholder diagnosis, policy
review and action planning on urban agriculture in each pilot
city.
- Seminars with local policy makers:
As part of the process to gain full support of the local policy
makers and other key actors (mayor, councillors, heads of
departments, directors of support organisations, etcetera)
in many cases in the pilot cities a seminar with local policy
makers and other key actors was organised to present the RUAF-CFF
programme, discuss the concept of urban agriculture and its
potentials for local policy objectives and to explore the
interest and commitment of the various key actors to support
the proposed policy development and action planning process.
- Establishment of the MPAP core team:
In each pilot city a core team has been formed that will guide
the Multi-stakeholder Policy development and Action Planning
process (MPAP), consisting of the Municipality and most committed
local partners and assisted by the Regional RUAF team.
- Preparation of a regional Training of Trainers workshop:
Selection of a regional core group of trainers and the preparation
of a training of trainers workshop that will be implemented
in the second half of the year. These trainers will implement
later this year (and subsequent years) training course for
staff of the local organisations involved in the MPAP process
in the pilot cities as well as representatives of the partner
cities
- Preparation of situation diagnosis:
The local MPAP core teams, supported by the regional RUAF
advisors, are preparing the situation analysis regarding urban
agriculture that will be implemented in the selected pilot
cities. These studies will consist of several parts: 1. Review
of available literature and statistics, 2. review of existing
policies and regulations regarding urban agriculture, 3. a
GIS study to identify locations in use for urban agriculture
as well as vacant spaces that may be used for urban agriculture,
4. Participatory diagnosis of problems and potentials of existing
urban farming systems in selected urban and peri-urban areas,
5. Stakeholder analysis (identification of stakeholders, analysis
of their mandate and availability of human, financial and
other resources and their potential contributions to UA development;
assessment of training needs).
- Development of training modules and materials:
translation and further development and regionalisation of
the RUAF training modules materials for use in the 3 week
staff training courses that will be organised in each pilot
city later on this year.
In the next issue of RUAF UPDATE we will provide more information
on the situation in the pilot cities that started an MPAP process
this year [Beijing, Accra, Villa Maria del Triunfo (Lima), Hyderabad,
Bulawayo, Pikine (Dakar)].
For more information on the RUAF-CFF programme contact Ir.
Henk de Zeeuw, international coordinator RUAF-Cities Farming
for the Future programme (E-mail: ruaf@etcnl.nl).
For regional contacts see the end of this email bulletin.
2. RECENT EVENTS (CO-) ORGANISED BY RUAF PARTNERS
Building Participative Municipal Strategies for
Urban Agriculture, July 14-15, Lima, Peru
This workshop was organized on July 14-15, 2005 by the RUAF-partner
IPES in cooperation with CGIAR-Urban Harvest. The workshop was
attended by authorities and representatives from several municipalities
in the Lima metropolitan area: Villa Maria del Triunfo, Villa
El Salvador, San Juan de Miraflores, Lurigancho-Chosica and
Santa María de Huachipa.
As a result of the seminar, majors and representatives drafted
and later signed a municipal declaration that recognizes urban
agriculture as an important strategy for enhancing food security
and creating more inclusive, productive and ecological cities.
In addition, the declaration identifies key municipal strategies
for promoting urban agriculture, including: strengthening organisations
of urban producers, facilitating access to land for urban agriculture
through lease of vacant municipal land and tax exemptions for
land owners leasing their land to groups of urban farmers, the
promotion of re-use of household grey water and treated waste
water, the promotion of composting of urban organic wastes,
and enhancing access to capital by inclusion in micro-credit
systems and participatory budgeting.
The proceedings of the workshop and the declaration of the
Lima Municipalities will be posted shortly on the regional RUAF
website (Spanish language): www.ipes.org/au.
More information can be obtained from: Gunther Merzthal (gunther@ipes.org.pe)
Study visit and Conference on Agro-tourism, August
7-16, Xingjian, China
The RUAF-partner IGSNRR organised a study visit and conference
on Peri-urban Agro-tourism from August 7-16. More than 100 participants
took part in the one week study visit and attended the conference,
including 20 persons from Taiwan.
The proceedings on the study visit and conference will be published
on the Chinese language RUAF website: www.cnruaf.com.
More information can be obtained from Jianming Cai (Email: caijm@igsnrr.ac.cn)
Study visit and workshop “Urban micro-farming and
HIV-AIDS; Urban agriculture as an additional strategy for mitigation
of the HIV-AIDS epidemic”, 16-25 August, South Africa
From 16 to 25 of August, twenty five representatives of Governmental
organisations, NGO’s, Municipal councils, Farmer organisations
and Research institutes from South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe,
Namibia, Mozambique, Uganda, Botswana, Kenya and Swaziland visited
Cape Town and Johannesburg in South Africa. Participants represented
organisations with ample experience in implementing HIV-Aids
programmes and/or Urban Agriculture Projects as well as researchers
and representatives from local and national authorities.
The study visit was organised by the RUAF partner ETC-Urban
Agriculture in cooperation with Abalimi Bezekhaya (South Africa)
and the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation
(CTA, the Netherlands).
The aim of the study visit was to enhance the impacts and sustainability
of existing urban food gardening and livestock raising activities
and their relevance for HIV-Aids infected families and to facilitate
the inclusion of urban agriculture in national and local HIV-AIDS
programmes.
The participants exchanged their experiences gained in urban
food production and nutrition programmes with and for HIV-infected
and affected families in their countries and visited community
led urban agriculture projects in both cities.
The study visit and workshop clearly revealed the enormous potential
of community led urban agriculture for the mitigation of the
impacts of the HIV-AIDS epidemic. A large number of experience
based recommendations were formulated and discussed with local
authorities.
A platform for continued information exchange and mutual support
in the field of Urban Food Production and HIV/AIDS was established
and several follow up actions were identified. Persons interested
to join the group email listserv and contribute to the exchanges
may write to Ir. Henk de Zeeuw at ruaf@etcnl.nl
The proceedings on the study visit and workshop will be published
on the RUAF website (www.ruaf.org)
and CTA will publish a DVD with all papers, presentations and
a video on the projects visited (www.cta.int).
3. NEW PROJECTS INITIATED BY RUAF PARTNERS
Ensuring Health and Food Safety from Rapidly Expanding
Wastewater Irrigation in South Asia
RUAF partner IWMI-India since June 2005 is participating in
a new research project Ensuring Health and Food Safety from
Rapidly Expanding Wastewater Irrigation in South Asia. The project
is funded by the German government (BMZ).
This project aims to identify the risks and benefits associated
with the use of untreated wastewater in urban and peri-urban
fodder and vegetable cropping systems in India and Pakistan,
with a particular focus on food safety, livelihoods and livestock.
For this purpose two mega-cities (Faisalabad, Pakistan and Hyderabad,
India) with large areas irrigated with untreated wastewater,
have been selected.
IWMI-India will cooperate with APT-Freiburg University (Germany),
the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Department
of Social and Preventive Medicine of the Osmania Medical College
(OMC), the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), the
Environment Protection Training and Research Institute (EPTRI)
and the Hyderabad Metro Water Supply & Sanitation Board
(HMWSSB) all in Hyderabad and the Institute of Public Health
(IPH) in Lahore and the Agronomy Department of Faisalabad Agricultural
University (FAU) and the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA)
from Faisalabad.
More information on this project may be obtained from (Email:
r.simmons@cgiar.org)
Sessions on Urban Agriculture in the World Urban
Forum 2006 (Vancouver, Canada)
On request of the Canadian Government, IDRC is organising sessions
on urban agriculture, food security and good governance as part
of the official programme of the World Urban Forum in Vancouver
in 2006.
IDRC invited the RUAF coordinator ETC to take the lead in the
preparation of two of these sessions, in which also other RUAF
partners like MDP, IWMI-India, IGSNRR and IPES will be involved:
- A Panel for local authorities. In this panel local authorities
from North and South will discuss the role urban agriculture
can play in strategies to address various urban development
challenges.
- The session “Cultivating sustainable cities” during which
local RUAF partners will discuss their experiences gained
in multi-stakeholder policy development and action planning
regarding urban agriculture with a mixed audience of representatives
of local authorities, NGO’s, CBO’s, governmental organisations
and other stakeholders in urban agriculture.
In October, the people involved in the realisation of these
two sessions will meet in Montreal (Canada) to prepare the sessions
in more detail.
More information on the activities for WUF2006 can be obtained
from: Marielle Dubbeling: m.dubbeling@etcnl.nl
Urban Agriculture Project in Istanbul, Turkey
The Turkish NGO Ulasilabilir Yasam Dernegi (Accessible Life
Association) requested RUAF partner ETC to assist them in planning
and implementation of the urban agriculture project named “Providing
Employment and Food Security through Urban Agriculture to People
under Risk in Istanbul/Gürpinar”. The project, which is
funded by the EU, started in early 2005 on a 4 ha field in Gürpinar,
which is a municipality under the larger city of Istanbul. The
main target of the project is to support and train unemployed,
poor women of Gürpinar in developing sustainable urban
agricultural activities. Twenty-five women have been trained
in organic agriculture, composting, processing and marketing,
and organisation (of cooperatives for example). The municipality
of Gürpinar is playing an active role in this project among
others by allocating the field and machinery needed. The Municipality
views this project as a pilot for future replication in other
parts of the city. At a recent seminar in Istanbul several other
municipalities expressed interest in similar activities.
ETC provides support to the planning and management of the project,
the training of staff and the set up of a monitoring system.
More information on this project can be obtained from Rene
van Veenhuizen (Email: r.van.veenhuizen@etcnl.nl)
Urban Producers’ Organisations Project
The RUAF-partners IPES (Peru) and ETC (the Netherlands) are
jointly implementing the research project “Urban producers’
organisations and their strategies to influence local policies”,
funded by IDRC (Canada).
The objective of the Urban Producers’ Organisations project
is to generate knowledge that will help to better understand
the types and performance of existing formal and informal urban
and peri-urban producers’ organisations in cities of developing
countries and to create a basis for assist existing and newly
emerging urban producers’ organisations to become more effective
and sustainable.
In total 7 city case studies are implemented: 4 in Latin America
(Montevideo in Uruguay, Rosario in Argentina, Recife in Brazil
and Lima in Peru) and 3 in Europe (Amsterdam and the Duinboeren-area
in The Netherlands and Budapest in Hungary). The city research
teams met in Montevideo in March 2005 for the methodological
preparation of the case studies.
In September 2005 an exchange visit of urban producers from
Latin America and Eastern Europe will bring a study visit to
their colleagues in the Netherlands, which will allow them to
exchange some lessons learnt by urban producers’ organisations,
in the fields of organisation management, the establishment
of relations with consumers, the participation in regional planning
and influencing of local politics.
Case studies and exchange visit will ultimately lead to the
formulation of recommendations regarding the strengthening of
urban producers’ organisations around the world. Organizational
capacity is critical for small urban and peri-urban producers
for negotiating with authorities and other interest groups,
representing the interests of group members, obtaining appropriate
support, ensuring quality of production and accountability for
their trade, thus enhancing their contribution to the local
economy and urban food security.
More information on this project may be obtained from Gunther
Merzthal (Email: gunther@ipes.org.pe)
or Marielle Dubbeling (Email: m.dubbeling@etcnl.nl).
4.
RECENT AND UPCOMING PUBLICATIONS BY RUAF PARTNERS
Final report on the first phase of the RUAF programme
The final report on the first phase of the RUAF-programme has
been accepted by the funding organizations. The report gives
a comprehensive overview of the objectives, strategies, outputs
and impacts of the RUAF programme during its forts phase (2000-2004)
as well as some lessons learnt during the implementation of
the programme (and which formed an important input for the formulation
of the second phase of the RUAF programme (CFF: 2005-2008).
This report may be downloaded from the RUAF-website (www.ruaf.org)
or you may want to contact the RUAF Secretariat for you copy.
We see this as a form of accountability to all those persons
and organisations that have cooperated with RUAF during the
past 5 years and it may broaden your understanding of what RUAF
has been doing and what it has accomplished in the past few
years.
Many of the publications mentioned in this report (books, study
reports, proceedings of E-conferences and workshops, UA-Magazines,
CD-ROMs, videos, etcetera) have also been published on the RUAF-website.
If you have interest in a RUAF-product that is not available
on the RUAF website, please contact the RUAF
partner in your region (see the end of this Email bulletin)
or write to ruaf@etcnl.nl
and we will make sure that you get a copy.
New RUAF book on urban agriculture
The RUAF partners and a large number of invited authors are
preparing a new major publication on urban agriculture (after
the successful publication “Growing Cities, Growing Food; Urban
Agriculture on the Policy Agenda of 2000 jointly with DSE).
IDRC is co-funding the publication. ETC coordinates its preparation
and IIRR (International Institute for Rural Reconstruction)
in Manila (the Philippines) will publish the book. Publication
is expected End of 2005.
More information on this publication can be obtained from:
René van Veenhuizen: r.van.veenhuizen@etcnl.nl.
Urban Agriculture Magazine issue 14 on Urban Aquatic
Production
No. 14 of the UA Magazine on Urban Aquatic Production (English
edition) has been distributed to our readers in July. This UA-Magazine
was a collaborative initiative of PAPUSSA and RUAF. PAPUSSA
is a collaborative research project between European and Asian
partners funded by the European Union seeking to better understand
the importance and nature of aquatic food production that occurs
in and around some of the major cities of Southeast Asia. The
project, which started in January 2003, is working with partners
in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, Phnom Penh in Cambodia
and Bangkok, Thailand.
This special issue of Urban Agriculture Magazine takes stock
of the PAPUSSA experiences, but also includes contributions
from others. It assesses the status and prospects of urban and
peri-urban aquatic production in the context of urban livelihood
systems. Urban aquatic production captures a broad array of
activities, varying from catching fish by using nets in the
Kolkata wastewater fed wetlands and lagoons to more intensive
fish culture, or to large scale cultivation of edible aquatic
plants. There are various environmental and social benefits,
like food provision and income to urban livelihoods, low-cost
wastewater treatment, and management of wetlands, health issues
and the multifunctional use. Urban planners and policy makers
need adequate information on these issues and on how stakeholders
value aquaculture in the city.
In November the Papussa project will organise a regional workshop
on Urban Aquaculture in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The electronic version of the UA-Magazine is available on the
RUAF website (www.ruaf.org).
For more information on the Papussa project see: www.papussa.org).
Urban Agriculture Magazine – Other languages
The Spanish and French editions of no. 12 of the UA-Magazine
have been published and distributed. They will be soon available
on the respective regional websites.
Also a new (double) issue of the UA-Magazine in Chinese has
been distributed. Readers in those languages are suggested to
contact the respective RUAF institutes in these regions.
Call for contributions: Multifunctional Land use
The call for contributions for the Urban Agriculture Magazine
No. 15 on Multifunctional Land Use has been sent out. Over 10
articles have been received with a number of promises to the
editor for more. In case you would still like to contribute,
please contact the editor. For the full call see: www.ruaf.org.
More information on this new issue can be obtained from René
van Veenhuizen: r.van.veenhuizen@etcnl.nl.
Future issues of the UA-Magazine
The next issue of the UA Magazine, no. 16, will focus on “Policies,
Norms and Regulations regarding urban agriculture”. The deadline
for submissions is set at March 1, 2006.
Future issues of the UAM will focus on:
- Micro-enterprise development, processing, marketing: the
role of private initiatives and farmer organisation;
- Urban agriculture as an additional strategy for mitigation
of the HIV-AIDS epidemic, and other Health issues;
- Optimisation of Water Use for Urban Agriculture: collection,
storage, nutrients, treatment, etc.
Contributions to these issues are welcome as well as articles
on other topics and opinions. A call for contributions for these
issues will follow soon.
Send your contributions to the editor of UA-Magazine: René
van Veenhuizen: r.van.veenhuizen@etcnl.nl.
The
RUAF programme is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
(DGIS, the Netherlands) and the International Development Research
Centre (IDRC, Canada).
The partners in the RUAF programme are:
- International coordination: ETC-Urban Agriculture, Leusden,
the Netherlands. E-mail: ruaf@etcnl.nl.
- Regional Coordination Latin America and the Caribbean: IPES
(Promocion del Desarrollo Sostenible), Lima, Peru. E-mail:
gunther@ipes.org.pe;
Website: www.ipes.org/au.
- Regional Coordination East and Southern Africa: MDP (Municipal
Development Partnership, Harare, Zimbabwe. E-mail: smushamba@mdpafrica.org.zw;
Website: www.mdpafrica.org.zw.
- Regional Coordination West and Central Africa (Anglophone):
IWMI-Ghana (International Water Management Institute Sub regional
Office for West Africa), Accra, Ghana. E-mail: o.cofie@cgiar.org;
Website: www.iwmi.cgiar.org.
- Regional coordination West and Central Africa (Francophone):
IAGU (Institut Africain de Gestion Urbaine), Dakar, Senegal.
E-mail: moussa@iagu.org;
Website: www.iagu.org.
- Regional Coordination South and South East Asia: IWMI (International
Water Management Institute India Office), Hyderabad, India.
E-mail: r.simmons@cgiar.org;
Website: www.iwmi.cgiar.org.
- Regional coordination China: IGSNRR (Institute of Geographical
Sciences and Natural Resource Research of the National Academy
of Sciences) Beijing, China. E-mail: caijm@igsnrr.ac.cn;
Website: www.cnruaf.com
- Regional Coordination Northern Africa and the Middle East:
AUB-ESDU (Environment and Sustainable Development Unit, American
University of Beirut), Beirut, Libanon. E-mail: rzurayk@aub.edu.lb;
Website: www.aub.edu.lb.
Please, feel free to forward this bulletin. Back issues of
RUAF Update will be made available on the RUAF website (www.ruaf.org).
You are very welcome to send us your comments regarding this
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