Engaging civil society organisations in food security governance in the Western Cape

Abstract

Even before the Covid lockdown, many households across the province struggled to access enough nutritious food for a healthy life. This leads to high levels of childhood stunting, adult and child obesity and a prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. The Western Cape Strategic Framework for the Provincial Strategic Plan (PSP) (2019-2024) identifies food security as one of four cross-cutting themes, while food assistance is one of the specific interventions of the Western Cape Recovery Plan (2021). Furthermore, The Western Cape Government has recognised that improving food and nutrition outcomes calls for a Whole of Society Approach and has acknowledged its appreciation of new partnerships formed with civil society in the wake of the negative impacts of Covid-19. However, partnering between different parts of society is not always straightforward, requiring reflection and adjustment over time. The Covid-19 lockdown and resulting economic and social shock both heightened the food security crisis in the province and, at the same time, led to a massive mobilisation of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) involved in emergency food relief. This presented an ideal window to assess the changing CSO landscape in relation to food, the evolving relationships between CSOs and government as well as the potential implications both for ongoing food relief provision and for food governance more widely after the Covid crisis. To date, the project has achieved important milestones: • A stakeholder meeting was held (via Zoom) on 23rd June 2020. A record of the meeting can be read here. One hundred seven participants took part via Zoom and another 100+ watched on youtube. The stakeholder meeting took the form of a meeting of the Food Governance Community of Practice (COP), which are regular meetings organised by the research team and related to another CHEC/WCG project ‘Co-producing knowledge for resilient food systems in the Western Cape’. The meeting was, however, expanded to include CSO representatives who are generally not part of these meetings. • Desk-based documentary analysis of over 250 media articles, working papers, research reports, and webinars relating to the impacts of the lockdown on the food system in South Africa have been collated and analysed. These documents touch on subjects such as food relief, informal food trade, community gardens, digital food etc. • A member of the research team participated in all of the regular meetings of the Western Cape NGO-Government Food Relief Coordination Forum since 28th May 2020. These meetings have been facilitated by the Western Cape Economic Development Partnership (WCEDP) and were refocused as the Food Forum in October 2020. The reports of the meetings and participant lists have fed into this research both directly as data and also as a resource to help identify potential interviewees. • Over 50 in depth one hour interviews have been conducted with CSO representatives and government officials. These have been transcribed and then analysed according to emerging themes using qualitative data analysis software (Atlas.ti). • A second, smaller, stakeholder meeting was held (via zoom) on 11 May 2021 to feedback and refine the results of the research before finalising the working 3 paper. Forty four participants took part in this meeting. A summary of the main points from this meeting can be found here. • A Centre of Excellence Working Paper has been published on the CoE website reflecting the main findings of the research. This 68 page report is available here. • A 15 minutes podcast has been posted on the CoE website to summarise the research results in an assessable manner. The podcast is available here. • Presentations of the research findings have been made at various fora including the Food Governance Community of Practice (11 May 2021); the Food Forum (20 May 2021); the City of Cape Town Food Systems Working Group (8 July 2021); and the Mensch Food Affinity Group (5 August 2021). • Further dissemination material not specified in the original proposal is also in the pipeline, including a 5 minute film and a short media article. This research is part of the ongoing research initiated in part from the discussions of the Food Governance Community of Practice. The findings contribute to long standing questions about how to broaden and deepen the input of civil society stakeholders in food governance in the province.