The State of Urban Food Insecurity in Harare, Zimbabwe

This is part of a series of policy and research papers designed to raise the profile of the urban food security issue in Africa by presenting new research findings and policy recommendations.

This paper begins with an assessment of these household surveys of urban food security conducted between 2003 and 2009. It then describes an alternative methodology for measuring urban food security. This methodology was developed and used by AFSUN in a baseline household food security survey in Harare in late 2008 as part of a larger eleven-city study of Southern Africa.10 The timing of the Harare research is important because it occurred at a time when the country’s economic and political crisis was at its worst. Formal sector unemployment was over 80%, inflation was running at almost 100% per day and the country was still reeling from the effects of the highly contested election of June 2008. This study therefore provides considerable insights into the food security levels and strategies of households at the peak of the crisis. It does not purport to represent the present-day food security situation in Harare. However, it does also provide reliable baseline information from which the current situation could be assessed in order to see whether and how the food security of Harare has improved since 2008. The paper concludes by recommending that the AFSUN methodology be adopted to monitor current and future levels of food insecurity in Harare.