Wednesday June 21, 13.30 - 15.30 hrs.
Room MR03
The session is organized by McGill University-Canada in cooperation with RUAF partner ETC Urban Agriculture and supported by IDRC.

This panel is based on the experiences gained in the Making the Edible Landscape project, jointly implemented by the above mentioned organisations and local partners in Kampala, Colombo and Rosario.

It will explore how land can be utilized by local authorities for (1) low-cost housing for the urban poor (2) inclusion in low cost housing projects of urban food production and empowerment of citizens through participatory processes, commercialization and income-generation (3) public-private partnership for sustainable development. Four mayors, horticulturists, housing experts and community representatives from the above mentioned cities as well as from Montreal will present urban upgrading and new construction projects that include food production and where the community plays an active part in both the decision-making and the maintenance of public lands.

This session was organised by IDRC, in cooperation with RUAF partners ETC-Urban Agriculture and IGSNRR.

In this panel local authorities from Beijing, Kampala, Rosario and Vancouver shared their experiences and discussed the next steps in strengthening the contribution of various forms of urban and peri-urban agriculture to different “city visions

Organised by the International Network of Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF Foundation) and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)

Key Highlights

Proceedings of the MDP/IDRC workshop on the political economy of urban and peri-urban agriculture in Eastern and Southern Africa compiled by Shingiraj Mushamba.

Bronte Hotel, Harare, Zimbabwe, February 28 - March 2, 2001

Organised by the Municipal Development Programme for Eastern and Southern Africa (MDP-ESA) in collaboration with IDRC. The workshop focused on the political economy of urban agriculture, in recognition of the important role it plays: access to resources such as peri-urban land and water are key to determining who practices urban agriculture and who benefits. Secure access to land and water is influenced not only by urban legislation and landuse planning, but also by the range of formal and informal rules, institutions and processes that determine access to and use of resources, and through which competition and negotiation over resources occur. Understanding these processes can assist in establishing political processes and institutions which enable stakeholders to resolve potential conflicts over access to resources.