Urban food security in Ghana: a policy review

Abstract

This policy review aimed (i) to investigate how urgencies such as urbanisation and climate change are recognised in the current policies of a low-income country, and (ii) to investigate how food security, and urban food security in particular, interacts with these policies. Ghana is used as an example. The policy review revealed that the agricultural, nutrition and health, spatial development and climate policies dealt with one or more aspects of food security within the food system framework. The overall conclusion is that the aspects of food security are still covered by the traditional policies: agriculture mainly deals with production, distribution and exchange of food. Nutritional value and food safety, for instance, are main concerns of the health and nutrition policy. However, Ghana is developing the Long-Term National Development Plan (LTNDP) which combines several policies. Food safety is also increasingly considered for the exchange of food from an export perspective: export requires particular food quality standards. The results of our policy review confirm that the integration of food security elements is still in an early process of development. In addition, the urban aspect of food security was hardly considered in the policies relating to food security in Ghana. This review was explored for (urban) food security in Ghana. It is likely that results for other African countries or other low-income countries in other continents would have yielded similar results.

Food systems thinking unpacked: a scoping review on industrial diets among adolescents in Ghana

“…When it comes to adolescents' exposure to unhealthy diets, the policy environment is one of the most underresearched domains. There are existing policies in Ghana that speak to various aspects of food security; a recent policy review found 23 policy documents that either mention or are centred on food and nutrition security, from poverty reduction and economic development, to agriculture, nutrition and health, spatial demographic development, climate change, and trade (Linderhof et al, 2019). Examples include Food and Agriculture Sector Development Policy (Ministry of Food & Agriculture, 2007), and Support to the Planting for Food and Jobs Campaign (FAO, 2020).…”

Transition pathways development for healthier diets in urban food environments of Accra, Ghana

“…For the improvement of food security in Accra and Ghana, the emphasis of Ghana's policy has largely been the improvement of food availability in terms of increasing agricultural production and setting productivity targets (Linderhof et al 2019). The policy review of Linderhof et al (2019) aimed to provide insight into how urban food security was incorporated in four polices: agricultural policy, nutrition and health policy, economic policy and spatial planning policy. In their policy review on urban food security, they used the four pillar of food security as defined by the FAO: food availability, food accessibility, food utilisation and stability.…”