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” technologies for home gardens, Tamale, Ghana (urban vegetable production), Dingxiang county, China (revitalization of former government led cooperative), Villa El Salvador, Peru (15 small projects on production, composting and processing in collaboration with Min of Environment. For Nakuru a project focused on policy development on Urban Agriculture is in approval stage.

For more information on the RUAF-CFF programme: see www.ruaf.org. The RUAF website contains information on the RUAF-CFF programme, the activities in each region and pilot city and all RUAF publications, including the Urban Agriculture Magazine in 6 languages, as well as an extensive on line bibliographic database (English) and other valuable resources sections as well as linkages to the regional RUAF-websites with more specific information and regional contacts- and bibliographic databases (in French, Spanish, Chinese and English).

2. RECENT EVENTS (CO-) ORGANISED BY RUAF PARTNERS

Horticulture Trade Fair 2007 in Hyderabad
The IWMI India - RUAF team participated in a four day horticulture expo, which was organized by the Department of Horticulture. From 25 to 29 January, 2007, the team showed the possibility of utilising vertical spaces in urban dwellings where space is the major constraint. The RUAF team reacted with this exhibition to interest expressed by the Director of Horticulture to showcase more the so called “Low Space No Space” Techniques. These techniques were demonstrated earlier in a two-day training for staff of local stakeholders in Hyderabad organised by IWMI-RUAF in cooperation with the Western Province Department of Agriculture of Sri Lanka. The stand at the exhibition was visited by the Finance Minister, Mr. Rosaiah, and the Minister of Agriculture for the State of Andhra Pradesh, Mr. N. Raghu Veera Reddy, along with Dr. Anil Puneetha, Director of Horticulture in Hyderabad. In addition, nearly 5000 people visited the stand, while 1050 visitors filled in an interest and training needs questionnaire on the technologies.

Members of the IDRC’s Board of Governors visited experiences of urban agriculture and wastewater reuse in Lima, Peru
In order to increase their knowledge about the urban agriculture and wastewater reuse activities that take place in Lima (Peru), members of the IDRC’s Board of Governors leaded by their president Maureen O’Neill, guided by Mauricio Pardón (director CEPIS) and Romy Torres (Environmental Office of the Peruvian Ministry of Housing) visited the wastewater treatment plant in Villa El Salvador, known as Parque 26, and two community gardens that regional RUAF partner IPES is implementing in Villa Maria del Triunfo (VMT) in cooperation with the Peruvian Energy Network and the local municipality. The visitors were pleasantly surprised with these green spaces in such an arid zone like VMT and with such strong commitment of the urban farmers to the project.

Innovation Marketplace: CGIAR CSO Conference, Washington, USA
RUAF Foundation and IWMI presented results of their innovative partnership to the Innovation Marketplace organized by the CGIAR back to back to its annual meeting in December 2006, in Washington that was organized to showcase innovative collaboration between CSOs and CGIAR institutes. For more information: visit http://www.cgiar.org/csos/im_2006.html or contact René van Veenhuizen (r.van.veenhuizen@etcnl.nl)

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3. NEW URBAN AGRICULTURE RELATED PROJECTS INITIATED BY RUAF PARTNERS

Wastewater Treatment and Reuse for urban agriculture in Lima: SWITCH Project-Lima, PerúLima is one of the cities under the global project SWITCH (Beijing and Accra are also selected). Since January 2007, IPES (coordinating institution of the project) is implementing researching activities on the treatment and reuse of wastewater for urban agriculture and green spaces. As part of SWITCH in Lima, 46 experiences on urban agriculture and reuse of treated wastewater have been identified. Also a stakeholder mapping has been elaborated, which includes 63 institutions that are involved in both themes. The next steps will be to select, document and analyse six successful experiences as a basis for the development of political and operational guidelines regarding innovative systems of treatment and reuse of wastewater for urban agriculture and urban greening. For more information of the project write an e-mail to switch@ipes.org

A Publication on Gender mainstreaming in Urban AgricultureIn March this year IDRC approved a proposal by RUAF together with Urban Harvest, the CGIAR system-wide programme on urban and peri-urban agriculture, to prepare a publication on gender mainstreaming in urban agriculture.
The publication will consist of two parts:

1. The case studies presented by RUAF and Urban Harvest partners during the workshop “Women Feeding Cities, gender mainstreaming in urban food production and food security” jointly organized by RUAF and Urban Harvest in Nairobi in September 2004, with co-funding from PRGA, CTA and IDRC. The case studies will be updated, complemented with some additional case studies and introduced by a chapter on gender mainstreaming in urban agriculture introducing main concepts and synthesizing main outcomes of the case studies
2. Guidelines and tools for gender mainstreaming in urban agriculture research and action projects, specified for each phase of the project cycle. The guidelines will be field tested in several RUAF and Urban Harvest related projects.
The project team includes Alice Hovorka ( Department of Geography Guelph University), Joanna Wilbers (RUAF) and Mary Njenga (Urban Harvest). A start up meeting was realized in Nairobi in March 2007. The publication will be ready by end 2008.

Call: In case you have or are undertaking research on gender in urban agriculture or have gained ample experiences with gender mainstreaming in urban agriculture research and development projects, please contact Joanna Wilbers at j.wilbers@etcnl.nl so that we may exchange experiences with you and eventually include your case study in this publication.

Optimizing Water Management in Villa María del Triunfo (Peru)IPES received funding support from CORDAid (The Netherlands) to implement the Project “Optimizing water management to fight against urban poverty: development of productive and recreational areas reusing treated wastewater” in a part of Villa María del Triunfo (Lima, Peru). The objective of the project is to implement a wastewater treatment system for its reuse in “productive green areas” (a multi-functional space). This concept will allow the integration of the urban agriculture with other land uses like recreation, culture promotion, ecological education and others. The first phase of the project concerns the participatory design of the multifunctional space. More information can be obtained from Gunther Merzthal at au@ipes.org.pe

Distance Learning Courses on Urban Agriculture and Food SecurityETC-UA started a project with Ryerson University from Canada regarding the development of several acccredited Distance Learning Courses on Urban Agriculture and Food Security. The first course: Introduction to urban agriculture will be offered from January 2008 onwards. Following courses on "Types of urban agriculture", "Dimensions of urban agriculture" and "Urban agriculture policy making" will be offered later in 2008 by Ryerson, provided enough participants subscribe to these courses. Course materials will also be offered for free in a self-learning mode on the RUAF website. It is hoped to develop future courses in French and Spanish language in collaboration with Southern partners. For more information: m.dubbeling@etcnl.nl and joenasr@compuserve.com

IAGU will be partner in the IDRC supported Focus City project in DakarSince end of last year, IAGU is one of the leading partner in the IDRC supported Focus City project in Dakar. The Dakar City Team is exploring safe and sustainable uses of the highly polluted Mbeubeuss landfill site where waste scavenging and urban farming are key livelihood activities. The goal is to propose locally appropriate options that reduce health impacts, improve the environment and create employment, contributing to solid waste management policies throughout Dakar. The team also includes the City of Pikine, government health, landuse and environmental departments, ENDA, AMA, the Sustainable Cities Initiative of Industry Canada with Ecoloner International and the Paul Gerin Lajoie Foundation. For more information: oumar@iagu.org and www.idrc.ca/upe.

IWMI-Ghana will be involved in the WHO-FAO-IDRC project that will work with the WHO Guidelines; IWMI-Ghana has been undertaken assessments and testing of possible non-treatment options at farm, market and kitchen level in the past few years. In 2006, the WHO refined their joint WHO, FAO and UNEP guidelines for safe wastewater irrigation. These new guidelines offer a range of alternative options for health risk reduction. IDRC, WHO and FAO have started an initiative in Ghana, Jordan and Senegal of locally testing these new guidelines. In Ghana, IWMI-Ghana and RUAF are supporting this project. For more information contact: o.cofie@cgiar.org at RUAF in Ghana or p.drechsel@cgiar.org at IWMI-Ghana.

In 2006 RUAF China Regional Team of IGSNRR collaborated in seven new research and consultancy projects funded by government and agro-entreprises; among others a Land Use Master Planning Revision in Miyun County and Daxing District (2006-2020) funded by respectively the Miyun County government and the Daxing District government of Beijing Municipality; and a third workshop on Agro-tourism Development between mainland China and Taiwan in colloboration with Taiwan Asia University and funded by various agro-enterprises. For more information contact: Cai Jianming at caijm@igsnrr.ac.cn

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4. RECENT AND UPCOMING PUBLICATIONS BY RUAF PARTNERS

Recent publications:

• A book on porciculture in urban areas was produced (in Spanish) by RUAF partner IPES in cooperation with University of Cienfuegos and the University of the Republic of Uruguay, who also published a practical guide for farmers on cultivation in arid zones were produced (more information at: http://www.ipes.org/au)
• A video on wastewater irrigation in Ghana was produced by RUAF partner IWMI-Ghana (more information at: http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/africa/West/projects/RUAFII-CFF.htm)
• A policy brief on urban agriculture has been produced (in French) by RUAF partner IAGU (more information at: www.iagu.org/ruaf/ruafiagufr.php)
• A CD-rom on technologies for space confined horticulture was produced by RUAF partner IWMI-India (more information at: http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/southasia/ruaf/about.html)
• RUAF partner IGSNRR collaborated in the special issue of the magazine “Investigation and Decision-Making” of the Sichuan Policy Research Department with the presentations and conclusions of the RUAF organised Policy seminar on urban agriculture, Chengdu November 2006. This magazine which was distributed in 5000 copies among government bodies at different levels (more information at: www.cnruaf.com.cn)
• Urban Agriculture Magazine No. 17 Strengthening Urban Producers' Organisations, February 2007. Experiences of past and ongoing studies on Urban Producers' Organisations by IPES/ETC and by FAO are included. This magazine is available at: www.ruaf.org

  Upcoming Issues Urban Agriculture Magazine
   

• No. 18: Community Based Urban Agriculture
  This issue is currently being edited. Contributions show experiences related to social inclusion of migrants, youth and marginalised groups by urban agriculture. Experiences from both the South and the North (community gardening in the USA, regional farming in Europe, HIV/Aids and UA, etc.) are discussed. The issue will look at social inclusion and community building in relation to various topics.
  Planned publication: June 2007.
   
• No. 19: Supporting Innovativeness in Urban Farming Systems
  Urban farming systems are in constant development. Innovation is continuously taking place. This issue of the UA Magazine will take stock of a broad range of experiences involving participatory methodologies for promoting innovation in urban farming systems, and new technologies in urban farming that were developed by farmers, or by farmers and researchers jointly, in response to the specific urban conditions. We are particularly interested in experiences showing the process of adapting methodologies and technologies to the urban setting and indicating how innovation of urban farming systems can be stimulated and supported most effectively.
  This issue is a collaborative effort of RUAF with Prolinnova (www.prolinnova.net) and Urban Harvest (http://www.cipotato.org/urbanharvest/home.htm).
  In case you would like to contribute, please contact the editor: Rene van Veenhuizen (r.van.veenhuizen@etcnl.nl). The call for contributions can be downloaded at www.ruaf.org.
  Deadline for contributions: 1 September 2007. Planned publication: November 2007.

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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.
  Email: ruaf@etcnl.nl | Website: www.etc-urbanagriculture.org
• Regional Coordination Latin America and the Caribbean: IPES (Promocion del Desarrollo Sostenible), Lima, Peru.
  Email: gunther@ipes.org.pe | Website: www.ipes.org/au
• Regional Coordination East and Southern Africa: MDPESA (Municipal Development Partnership for Eastern and Southern Africa), Harare, Zimbabwe.
  E-mail: tmubvami@mdpafrica.org.zw
  Website: www.mdpafrica.org.zw/urban_agriculture.html
• Regional Coordination West and Central Africa (Anglophone): IWMI-Ghana (International Water Management Institute Sub regional Office for West Africa), Accra, Ghana.
  Email: o.cofie@cgiar.org
  Website: http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/africa/West/projects/RUAFII-CFF.htm
• Regional coordination West and Central Africa (Francophone): IAGU (Institut Africain de Gestion Urbaine), Dakar, Senegal.
  Email: moussa@iagu.org | Website: www.iagu.org/ruaf/ruafiagufr.php
• Regional Coordination South and South East Asia: IWMI-India (International Water Management Institute India Office), Hyderabad, India.
  Email: r.simmons@cgiar.org
  Website: http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/southasia/ruaf/about.html
• Regional coordination China: IGSNRR (Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resource Research of the National Academy of Sciences) Beijing, China.
  Email: caijm@igsnrr.ac.cn | Website: www.cnruaf.com.cn
• Regional Coordination Northern Africa and the Middle East: AUB-ESDU (Environment and Sustainable Development Unit, American University of Beirut), Beirut, Lebanon.
  Email: ziadmoussa@yahoo.com | Website: www.ecosystems.org/esduhomepage.php

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