Comparing measures of urban food security in Accra, Ghana

Abstract

The urban population in Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to expand by nearly 800 million people in the next 30 years. How this rapid urban transition is affecting household-level urban food security, and reverberating into broader food systems, is poorly understood. To fill this gap, we use data from a 2017 survey (n = 668) of low-and middle-income residents of Accra, Ghana, to characterize and compare the predictors of household-level food security using three established metrics: the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS); the Household Food Insecurity Access Prevalence (HFIAP); and the Food Consumption Score (FCS). According to HFIAP, 70% of sampled households are food insecure, but only 2% fall below acceptable thresholds measured by FCS. Only one household reported sourcing food from modern supermarkets and fewer than 3% produce food for consumption through gardening, farming, or fishing. Instead, households rely on purchased food from traditional markets, local stalls and kiosks, and street hawkers. Results from a suite of general linear models show that household assets, education, and demographic characteristics are significantly associated with food security outcomes according to HFIAS and HFIAP. The poor correlation and weak model agreement between dietary recall such as FCS, and experience-based food security metrics, like HFIAS and HFIAP, highlight limitations of employing historically rural-centric food security measurement approaches within the urban context. Given that Sub-Saharan Africa's future is urban, our results add empirical evidence in support of the growing chorus of scholars advocating for comprehensive urban-oriented food security research and policy agendas across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Domestic Remittances and Household Food Diversity in Rural Ghana

“…This finding corroborates other studies' results (Aidoo, Mensah, & Tuffour, 2013;Tuholske, Andam, Blekking, Evans, & Caylor, 2020). Different higher education levels held by household heads reveal similarly positive impacts on food diversity, although neither of them is statistically significant.…”

Mapping disruption and resilience mechanisms in food systems

“…The concept of "food desert" (Whelan et al 2002;Beaulac et al 2009) refers to contexts where nutritious fresh foods, and even basic staples, are unavailable and unaffordable to poor or impoverished consumers who have only access to cheap, often highly-processed, non-nutritious, food. The concept has mostly been used in the context of the (urban) Global North, but can also apply to situations in the Global South (e.g., Li et al 2019;Tuholske et al 2020). Limited physical and economic access to food, including poor overall urban planning, deficient or non-existent public transport, urban decay, and generalised poverty have been cited as factors favouring the development of food deserts.…”

Food Security in Ghanaian Urban Cities: A Scoping Review of the Literature

“…The studies were all conducted in urban or peri-urban settings in Ghana. The distribution of the included studies by the geographical regions of Ghana are as follows; twenty-four studies in Greater Accra [ 20 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 ], eight studies in Ashanti Region [ 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 ], three studies in the Northern region [ 22 , 59 , 60 ], and two studies each in the Central region [ 61 , 62 ], Western region [ 21 , 63 ], Eastern [ 64 , 65 ]. Volta [ 66 ] and Brong Ahafo [ 67 ] regions contributed one study each, while two studies were conducted in two or more regions [ 49 , 68 ].…”

“…Perceived food insecurity was scarcely studied, with only five studies reporting on this domain of food security [ 29 , 30 , 49 , 65 , 69 ]. Of these studies, two studies were conducted in the Greater Accra region [ 29 , 30 ], and one from the Eastern region [ 65 ]. Two studies [ 49 , 69 ] were conducted in multiple urban cities.…”