RUNRES
The rural-urban nexus: Establishing a nutrient loop to improve city region food system resilience (RUNRES)
Background
Unprecedented rural to urban migration is placing enormous burdens on city areas across Africa. As a consequence, informal settlements are growing rapidly. The lack of appropriate sanitation, combined with high population densities, creates an environment suited to the outbreak of various waterborne diseases. Furthermore, rates of food insecurity in these settlements are amongst the worst on the continent. Together these development challenges account for the urban poor being amongst the most vulnerable populations in the world. Thus, efforts that seek to improve livelihoods across the rural-urban nexus are critical to socially equitable and ecologically sustainable development in Africa.
Goals of RUNRES
RUNRES seeks to address the development challenges of sanitation and food insecurity by
- identifying
- testing
- and installing
innovations (related to waste-recycling and small-scale processing) to improve resilience and sustainability of regional food systems. These innovations will be implemented through a transdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder development process.