E-mail bulletin with news of the International Network of Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF).

In this bulletin you will find information on:

1. RUAF-Cities Farming for the Future programme in 2007

• Annual RUAF CFF Programme Committee Meeting in Lima
• New RUAF Region: Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA)
• Training for new RUAF Training/MPAP officers
• Strengthening RUAF Knowledge and Information Management
• Progress in the first and second group of pilot cities
• Initiating activities in 6 new Pilot Cities
• Small projects in Dissemination Cities

2. Recent Events (co-) organised by RUAF partners

• Horticulture Trade Fair 2007 in Hyderabad
• Members of the IDRC’s Board of Governors visited experiences of urban agriculture and wastewater reuse in Lima, Peru
• Innovation Marketplace: CGIAR CSO Conference, Washington, USA

3. New Urban agriculture related projects initiated by RUAF partners

• Wastewater Treatment and Reuse for urban agriculture in Lima: SWITCH Project-Lima, Peru
• A Publication on Gender mainstreaming in Urban Agriculture
• Optimizing Water Management in Villa Maria del Triunfo (Peru)
• Distance Learning Courses on Urban Agriculture and Food Security
• IAGU partner in the IDRC supported Focus City project in Dakar
• IWMI-Ghana involved in the WHO-FAO-IDRC project that will work with the WHO Guidelines
• RUAF China Regional Team of IGSNRR collaborated in seven new research and consultancy projects

4. Recent and upcoming publications by RUAF Partners

Overview of RUAF Partners

1.  THE RUAF-CITIES FARMING FOR THE FUTURE PROGRAMME

For a description of the objectives and strategies in the RUAF-CFF programme and of the RUAF Partners, please visit our website: www.ruaf.org.

The RUAF Partners continued their work in the CFF programme and saw their activities growing. Information dissemination through the regional resource centres increases. In addition the RUAF partners are starting up activities with local partners in the third pilot cities.

Annual RUAF-CFF Programme Committee Meeting in Lima
Early February the regional RUAF coordinators and the ETC-RUAF team met in Lima, Peru, for 7 days, to discuss progress and experiences gained in 2006 as well as the plans for 2007. The meeting provided ample opportunities for sharing and learning. This PC meeting also marked the start up of systematisation of the experiences gained in the first two years which will result in the production of a series of RUAF working papers to be published end of this year.

New RUAF Region: Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA)
In December 2006 a workshop was held in Lebanon, Beirut with representatives from Amman (Jordan), Damascus (Syria), Sana’a (Yemen), Baalbeck and Beirut (Lebanon), Marocco and Tunis (Tunesia) to explore the possibilities for taking these cities up in the RUAF-MENA programme as pilot cities. In the end Amman and Sana’a were selected to participate in the RUAF programme as pilot cities from 2007 onwards, while with the other cities exchange relations will be maintained. In February 2007 the RUAF Foundation Board and donor organizations agreed to accept the MENA region as a new RUAF-CFF working area and the Environment and Sustainable Development Unit of the American University of Beirut (AUB-ESDU) as its eight member organization.

Training for new RUAF Training/MPAP officers
RUAF coordinator ETC organized training for new staff of the regional RUAF partners (Training/MPAP officers) from respectively Lebanon, Zimbabwe and India. The training focused on enhancing their capacities to train staff of local partners on participatory Multi actor Policy formulation and Action Planning (MPAP) regarding urban agriculture and to guide them in the implementation of such processes in the RUAF pilot cities.

Strengthening RUAF Knowledge and Information Management
A RUAF global Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) strategy has been developed and agreed upon in the annual PC Meeting. Regional KIM Strategy papers are being developed and discussed defining what kind of information is needed by which type of local stakeholders in the RUAF pilot and dissemination cities and how that information will be generated, systematized, packaged and channelled to these stakeholders.

For example: A Regional Strategy Paper for Latin America has been developed and discussed with the local teams in the pilot cities of Bogota (Colombia), Belo Horizonte (Brazil) and Villa Maria del Triunfo (Peru) during a workshop on Knowledge and Information Management and Monitoring in Lima, March 2007. The local teams were trained in the use of various strategies and tools for effective knowledge and information management to strengthen the local multi stakeholder planning process. For more information please contact: Gunther Merzthal, Regional Coordinator Peru (gunther@ipes.org.pe)

Progress in the first and second group of pilot cities
In the first and second group of six pilot cities (see RUAF Update # 7), the situation analysis re. urban agriculture has been finalised and local stakeholders have started to develop a City Strategic Agenda on UA in a Multi-Stakeholder Forum. In these cities also pilot projects have been formulated and their implementation has started.

For example: In Bobo Diolassso, the multi-stakeholder forum discussed the results of the situation analysis during its first meeting in December last year and established a number of working groups to develop policy and action proposals regarding the key issues that need to be attended (such as access to land and water for urban agriculture, adaptation of the actual norms and regulation, amongst others). In a second Multi Stakeholder Forum meeting these proposals were discussed and integrated into a City Strategic Agenda on Urban Agriculture. The Strategic Agenda describes the actual situation, the key issues that need policy attention, the joint vision of the local stakeholders on the desired development of urban agriculture in the city and the action strategies and other policy measures that will be applied to realise this vision, as well as implementation, coordination and monitoring mechanisms.

For example: Pilot projects dealing with safe productive reuse of wastewater in urban agriculture are implemented in Pikine (Dakar) and Bualawayo, with community gardens in Villa Maria del Triunfo (Lima), with space confined farming techniques in a school and community garden (Serilingampally-Hyderabad). See also Urban Agriculture Magazine no. 16 for reflections on the activities and results in the first six pilot cities

Initiating activities in 6 new Pilot Cities
In the mean time the Regional RUAF centres initiated activities in the third group of 6 pilot cities: Bogota (Colombia); Porto Novo (Benin); Ibadan (Nigeria); Ndola (Zambia); Gampaha (Sri Lanka); and Shanghai (China).
Awareness raising seminars are being organised and key stakeholders in urban agriculture are visited to get their commitment and participation in the MPAP facilitating team. In a next step in each city a Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop and a Training for staff of local stakeholders were organised by the regional RUAF partners, making use of training modules that have been upgraded based on the experiences gained in the first and second group of pilot cities. After the training the local stakeholders start the Situation Analysis re. urban agriculture will be implemented in each city by these local organisations.

For example: The city of Gampaha, Sri Lanka was visited by the Coordinator of RUAF-IWMI India, on 4 and 5 April to share the objectives and methodology of the RUAF-CFF Programme with selected local partners including the Municipality of Gampaha and the Departments of Health and Agriculture of Western Province in Gampaha and to constitute the local facilitating team for the local RUAF programme. The Department of Agriculture of WP will act as the lead partner. Other strategic partners were identified during the meeting. A Training of Trainers workshop and MPAP training for staff of local stakeholders is under preparation at the moment
For more information please contact: Rob Simmons, Regional Coordinator India (r.simmons@cgiar.org)

In Bosa, one of the Townships of Bogota, Colombia the training has been completed and the situation analysis is under implementation. The situation analysis will focus on urban agriculture in the central part of the town and will include identification and analysis of the main stakeholders in urban agriculture, mapping of vacant and agricultural land in the city, analysis of constraints and potentials of main urban farming systems by literature review and participatory rapid farming systems analysis and critical review of actual policies, bylaws and ordinances on urban agriculture. This process is implemented by the local team including staff from the Town ship of Bosa, the Municipality of Bogota, Botanic Garden of Bogota and Universidad del Rosario, among others.
More information is available at: http://www.ipes.org/au.

Small Projects in Dissemination Cities
Under the Competitive Fund, for which many proposals were submitted, 5 pilot projects have been selected and are implemented in: Kigali, Rwanda (establishment of vegetable gardens and composting of urban organic wastes), Cagayan de Oro, the Philippines (allotment gardens and Ecosan), Colombo, Sri Lanka (“low space