The State of Food Insecurity in Windhoek, Namibia

In 2008-2009, the African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN) conducted a baseline survey of poor urban households in 11 cities in Southern Africa to better understand the seriousness of the urban food security situation. This report looks in detail at the research results for Windhoek and seeks to answer one central question, that is, why do Windhoek’s urban poor generally appear to be better off than the urban poor in most of the other 10 cities where the survey was conducted and why, at the same time, does Windhoek contain some of the most food insecure households in the region? As a city of migrants, the Windhoek case also presents the opportunity to examine the relationship between migration and urban food security in more depth.