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Dining with less danger: mapping food and environmental hazards in Mathare, Nairobi

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Abstract

Street vendors play an important role in securing access to food for the residents of low-income settlements in many cities. Yet they are often seen as providing unsafe food and contributing to environmental degradation. In Nairobi, the local federation of the urban poor, Muungano wa Wanavijiji, set out to explore how to improve food safety and work with street vendors and livestock keepers, who are in most cases also local residents. This briefing describes how community-led mapping, including innovative techniques such as balloon mapping, helps create knowledge, and identify new initiatives that reflect local communities’ needs and priorities.
Urban environments
Keywords:
Food security, informal settlements
(slums), mapping tools
Brieng
Policy
pointers
Policymakers aiming to
increase urban food
security and safety should
recognise street vendors’
important role and support
them and their
organisations to improve
the safety and quality of
urban food.
Participatory mapping
lets local organisations in
informal settlements
reflect on how to expand
community-based
activities that improve food
security.
Mapping also reveals
communities’ innovative
use of public space and its
informal governance,
demonstrating a strong
role for settlement-led
development solutions.
However, progress on
food security and safety in
informal settlements still
depends on a foundation
of sound housing, land
tenure and infrastructure
policies.
Dining with less danger:
mapping food and
environmental hazards in
Mathare, Nairobi
Street vendors play an important role in securing access to food for the
residents of low-income settlements in many cities. Yet they are often seen
as providing unsafe food and contributing to environmental degradation. In
Nairobi, the local federation of the urban poor, Muungano wa Wanavijiji, set
out to explore how to improve food safety and work with street vendors and
livestock keepers, who are in most cases also local residents. This briefing
describes how community-led mapping, including innovative techniques such
as balloon mapping, helps create knowledge, and identify new initiatives that
reflect local communities’ needs and priorities.
Poor urban households rely largely on the
informal sector to buy their food. Informal food
processors and vendors are also key actors in the
large informal economies typical of many African
urban centres, including Nairobi. Yet their
important role in securing access to food for
low-income consumers, providing income-
generating activities for poor residents and their
overall contribution to the local urban economy
go largely unrecognised by planners and
policymakers.
In informal settlements, food processors and
vendors face constant challenges in keeping their
food safe to eat. Inadequate solid waste
collection, surface water drainage and often-non-
existent sanitation infrastructure are hazards that
affect both residents and vendors. In the crowded
informal settlements, people must compete with
roaming chicken and goats for limited public
space. With no water to wash their hands or their
fresh vegetables and no clean place to store their
food and their utensils, traders as well as
consumers are exposed to an endless cycle of
risk.
Recognising street vendors’ important role and
supporting them to improve food hygiene is a
major entry point for increasing urban food
security and safety. Vendors can both affect, and
be affected by, the city’s spatial structure,
land-use and how infrastructure and services are
provided. Involving food vendors and their
associations is vitally important for community-
led infrastructure planning.
This briefing reports a project in Mathare informal
settlement, Nairobi, Kenya. Carried out by the
local urban poor federation, Muungano wa
Wanavijiji, with support from Muungano Support
Trust, IIED and the Development Planning Unit of
University College London, it set out to map the
informal food web in Bondeni Village in Mathare,
detailing the physical constraints affecting food
Issue date
March 2014
Download the pdf at http://pubs.iied.org/17218IIED
IIED Briefing
vendors and food safety, and showing how
community led-mapping can help tackle poverty
issues.
Participatory
mapping in
Mathare
Accurate up to date maps
rarely exist for informal
settlements. In Mathare,
the team combined
community-led mapping
techniques, group
discussions and low cost aerial photography
(balloon mapping) to map infrastructure
(footpaths and roads; public and private light/
electricity sources; public and private toilets etc)
and environmental hazards (steep slopes, dark
alleyways, flooded areas, open-air sewage and
dumpsites).
Begin with brainstorming. We started our
mapping exercise with a brainstorming session
where we explored what we already knew about
the settlements, what to map, why and where
mapping would be worthwhile, then what tools
and techniques were available.
Mobilising the community. A consensus
building and mobilising session with the
community consolidated and verified our
brainstorming and led into a mental mapping
exercise with street vendors and residents to
establish an overall picture of the place and
issues to survey.
Mapping techniques. We then trained the
community for mapping and surveying using
paper maps, a mobile phone survey app that
captured locations of vending, food vending types
accompanied by a photo, observations on food
safety issues such as whether foods are covered
or not, and aerial photography from cameras
suspended from helium balloons. This balloon
mapping helped us to capture current birds-eye
views of the local built environment for selected
sites and along our walked transect. Stitched
together, they became a low cost alternative to
satellite imagery.
Discussion groups. Alongside the mapping,
focus group discussions involving vendors,
consumers and livestock owners provided
information about how residents use their public
spaces, identifying the main streets and
walkways, recording where children play, where
livestock are kept, street vending locations and
the types of food sold, and also noting waste
dumping sites. These discussions mapped and
captured people’s perceptions of environmental
hazards and how these relate to each other.
Sharing the findings. Following the community-
led mapping and data collection session the
project team discussed, analysed and
synthesised the data. Afterwards, we had an
immediate reflection and knowledge
consolidation session with the community. This
well-attended discussion helped define the most
pressing priorities and rank them by importance.
The community see this consolidated and
updated knowledge-base as a spur for further
deliberation, dialogue and updating of the
Mathare Zonal Plan1 as well as for advocacy and
policy action that will help the community
negotiate with public authorities for infrastructure
planning and for improved public spaces. See
Box 1 for views expressed by the community.
Mathare’s informal food web
Mathare’s informal food web includes food
production (urban agriculture and livestock
keeping), processing (cooking and packaging of
food), retail (selling cooked and uncooked food)
and transportation (getting food supplies from
markets to the food stalls within the settlement
and also positioning stalls so that food is
accessible to customers). These entrepreneurial
activities provide affordable food, income
generating opportunities, and even security on
the streets. Street vendors have become a focal
part of slum communities.
In informal settlements,
food processors and
vendors face challenges
in keeping their food safe
Box 1. Community views
1. “I think one of the most significant battles for food vendors in Mathare to
fight is the right for consumers to know what’s in their food, and how it is
prepared” — respondent, focus group
2. “The way we eat in informal settlements has changed over time; this is
because we lack adequate cooking spaces in our shanties and more so we
are prone to fire outbreaks. This is why we prefer ready-cooked food” —
respondent, focus group discussion
3. “Food Vendors Association is not all about lobbying for the interests of food
vendors but a strategic platform to champion issues of sanitation and
improved basic infrastructure in the settlements which have direct impacts on
food safety” — Julia Wacera, mobiliser
4. “My security and that of the settlement is a factor that dictates my vending
hours” — respondent, focus group discussion
5. “In Mathare we’ve become a community of technicians! We would rather
focus on the know-how, and not rubber stamp studies that did not involve the
community” — Willy, community mapper
6. “Open spaces are social meeting points for many slum residents, often
managed on the basis of collective informal governance” — respondent, focus
group discussion
7. “Never before in my wildest thoughts have I ever considered that food is
directly impacted by the status of sanitation infrastructure, but now I know”
— consumer, focus group discussion
IIED Briefing
Residents of informal settlements demonstrate a
strong ability to provide for their own needs and
survive in difficult economic circumstances. The
communities in Nairobi slums, such as Mathare,
struggle with issues including inadequate
housing, water and sewerage networks,
inaccessible and unsafe sanitation services,
unaffordable electricity and muddy roads. Many
residents rely on street vendors for their cooked
food and often for water, clothes and so forth. All
street sellers rely on a locally functioning
community, and this two-way reliance is
manifested in strongly ingrained community
solidarity, for example not selling milk with
preservatives to families with children or by
providing social support such as buying food from
family members and neighbours. Even strains
such as theft, loans between customers and
vendors that turn sour, or conflict between
livestock owners and food vendors fail to dent the
strong social network within the settlement.
The challenges of food vending in
public spaces
Despite these roles, Mathare’s street vendors are
often seen as a problem. The public spaces
where they work are often contested, and poor
facilities pose further difficulties. Our mapping
and survey work identified many challenges
facing Mathare’s informal food web, including:
Vendors compete for spaces along major
streets and may have to pay formal businesses
for using their frontages
Social and commercial exchanges in public
spaces can cause obstructions
Vendors generally lack shelter and proper
storage facilities, while high humidity and
temperatures increase food spoilage. Some
vendors add preservatives such as magadi
soda to their food, which could be harmful to
the customers in the long run
Pests including rats pose problems for vendors
and customers alike
Working in public spaces means livestock
faeces can contaminate food, and livestock
may themselves eat contaminated foods
Sanitation infrastructure is often non-existent,
and water may be expensive or unavailable
Uncovered surface drains bring risks of poor
health and flooding
Inadequate solid waste collection fosters food
contamination
Floods can damage food transport and stop
vendors from working
Power cuts and black outs reduce physical
security for both street vendors and their
customers. When power cuts force vendors to
close, their own earning potential is curtailed,
as is their customers’ access to cheap cooked
food
Food for urban livestock must be sourced from
shops, markets/food vendors, neighbours or
acquaintances. But contrary to popular
perception, this need for animal food means
street food vendors produce very little waste
— peelings go to livestock food.
Livestock diseases are difficult to control.
Livestock keepers sometimes give sick animals
human drugs, may keep their ill animals indoors,
or may administer only remedies like aloe vera,
pepper and vitamins. Sick animals are also sold
or slaughtered before they can die
Livestock are slaughtered in the settlement
were waste removal is inadequate. So slaughter
waste or whole dead animals may be left in the
river or along the streets
Street vendors often suffer evictions or forced
closure by city authorities during disease
outbreaks. This puts their livelihoods at risk and
reduces access to food for the poorest
residents of low-income settlements, who tend
to be most dependent on street vendors.
Yet mapping also revealed how the spaces near
environmental hazards are positively attractive to
Box 2. Nairobi’s Food Vendors’ Association (FVA)
The Food Vendors’ Association began in late 2013, formed by the Kenyan
Federation of Slum Dwellers, Muungano wa Wanavijiji. Its members come
from three informal Nairobi settlements: Mathare, Huruma and Kibera. It
champions food security issues in the informal settlements and infrastructure
needs. Its membership has grown very quickly — to almost 400 individual
vendors and producers in just a few months, suggesting there is great interest
in this issue.
The members include women who sell vegetables and cooked food, people
operating butcheries, kiosks owners selling food and cereals and livestock
keepers. Members are organised in local groups who jointly buy maize flour
and soap and develop a saving scheme from which they can get loans to
expand their businesses (up to three times the value of their savings).
The FVA sees itself as a change agent taking a strategic initiative and
championing issues of sanitation and other infrastructure in the settlements.
It can integrate and scale up individual and personal actions, drawing on the
deep social networks that exist in the informal settlements. FVA proposes
several opportunities that food vendors and livestock keepers can embrace to
enhance food safety in Mathare. These include: monthly trainings on food
security and sanitation to create awareness of the importance of hygiene and
how to enhance cleanliness at food vending spaces, and team clean up
exercises to create collective responsibility among food vendors, livestock
keepers and residents for keeping the settlement clean.
Knowledge
Products
The International Institute
for Environment and
Development (IIED)
promotes sustainable
development, linking local
priorities to global
challenges.
Muungano wa Wanavijiji is
a Kenyan settlement-based
network of slum dwellers.
This movement of the
urban poor addresses the
challenges of forced
eviction, insecure tenure
and livelihoods in poor
communities,
www.mustkenya.or.ke.
The Muungano Support
Trust is a Technical
Secretariat to Muungano
wa Wanavijiji.
The Development Planning
Unit, University College
London conducts research
and postgraduate teaching
helping to build the capacity
of national governments,
local authorities, NGOs and
aid agencies in the global
south.
Contact
Sohel Ahmed
sohel.ahmed@ucl.ac.uk
Edwin Simiyu
esimiyu@mustkenya.or.ke
Cecilia Tacoli
cecilia.tacoli@iied.org
80–86 Gray’s Inn Road
London, WC1X 8NH
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 3463 7399
Fax: +44 (0)20 3514 9055
www.iied.org
IIED welcomes feedback
via: @IIED and
www.facebook.com/theiied
This research was funded
by UK aid from the UK
Government, however the
views expressed do not
necessarily reflect the views
of the UK
Government.
IIED Briefing
food vendors and consumers, because
competition and costs there are low. Customers
in Mathare opt for lower prices over higher quality
when purchasing food.
Opportunities and policy
priorities
Food vendors play a significant role in informal
settlements such as Mathare, and food vendor
associations (see Box 2) and their initiatives on
infrastructure can complement formal planning
policies. In Nairobi and other cities there are
opportunities for vendors’ associations to
collaborate with initiatives such as the Kenya
Slum Upgrading Program and the Kenya Informal
Settlement Improvement Project. Participatory
mapping is a way to build this relationship.
Mapping can become a tool for communities to
engage with public authorities. In Nairobi, the
FVA has embraced balloon mapping as both a
knowledge creation and a mobilisation tool. Such
iterative and participatory tools offer the
community leverage when advocating better
access to water and improved sanitation. They
can also showcase community-led infrastructure
improvement and better social, health and
environmental practices that have started to raise
food safety in slums. Following the pilot study in
Mathare, food mapping is now taking place in
Mukuru and Kibera, two other large informal
settlements in Nairobi.
Mapping has also revealed how local
communities use public spaces innovatively,
managing these on the basis of informal
governance. Policies on community lands should
entrust communities with settlement led
development solutions for such open public
spaces (community markets, designated waste
disposal points, and toilet and water blocks).
However, good food safety practices depend on a
foundation of proper inhabitable and affordable
housing and on basic infrastructure in low-
income settlements. Without sound policy on
housing, land tenure and infrastructure, rapid
urbanisation will ensure poverty, food insecurity
and poor health standards continue to coalesce
in urban slums.
Sohel Ahmed, Edwin Simiyu, Grace Githiri,
Adrienne Acioly, Shadrack Mbaka, Irene
Karanja, Leonard Kigen
Sohel A hmed is a research a ssociate at the Dev elopment Planning
Unit, University Colle ge London, http://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/
profile?upi=S AHMB67. Edwin Simiy u is a programme of ficer
working on community planning at Muungano Support Trust (MuST)
and is a sur veyor by profession . Grace Githiri is a communit y planner
at MuST. Adrie nne Acioly is a gradu ate of the DPU and an int ern at
MuST. Shadrack Mbaka i s a programme offi cer working in
communi cations at MuST. Irene K aranja is the execu tive director of
MuST. Leona rd Kigen is finance a nd administrati on manager at
MuS T.
Notes
1 www.mustkenya.or.ke/index.php/settlement-zonal-plans/mathare-zonal-plan
Download the pdf at http://pubs.iied.org/17218IIED
Figure 1. Bondeni food types and infrastructure map
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... $ Poverty$ additionally$ and$ perversely$ increases$ the$ cost$ of$ meeting$ basic$ needs,$ particularly$ food$and$water.$Urban$food$insecurity$is$a$considerable$problem,$as$lowJincome$residents$ often$ having$ to$ purchase$ food$ from$ informal$ vendors$ at$ higher$ costs$ and$ more$ variable$ quality$ (Ahmed$ et# al.$ 2014).$ Similarly,$ residents$ of$ lowJincome$ and$ informal$ settlements$ frequently$ have$ to$ purchase$ water$ at$ high$ cost:$ studies$ in$ four$ cities$ show$ that$ buying$ sufficient$municipal$water$can$cost$between$11$per$cent$and$a$theoretical$112$per$cent$of$ typical$household$incomes$ (Mitlin$and$Walnycki,$2016 services$ and$ amenities,$ and$ agglomeration$ effects,$ such$ as$ knowledge$ and$ technological$ spillovers$ (Puga,$ 2010;$ Satterthwaite,$ 2011;$ Cartwright,$ 2015).$ ...
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Food traders are well-known figures in major markets or in central business districts (CBDs), but there is limited recognition for vendors selling food in informal settlements where many of them also reside. To foster more appropriate, safe, and inclusive urban food strategies, this brief will highlight the contributions of food vendors and new ways of supporting these traders in Nairobi's informal settlements. Vendors may struggle to ensure food safety, due to the poor infrastructure and hazardous environmental conditions in informal settlements (Ahmed et al. 2015). At the same time, these workers sell an array of accessible, low-cost foods and vending is a key livelihood strategy, especially for women. Essential interventions may include trainings in food hygiene and offering water, sanitation, safe storage, rubbish collection, and other services that can promote food safety in informal settlements (Githiri et al. 2016). Bolstering food vendors' livelihoods can spur inter-sectoral strategies that can also enhance quality of life and food security across their settlements.
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