Migration, Urbanization and Food Security in Cities of the Global South: 26–27 November 2012, Cape Town, South Africa

The disjuncture between food security, migration and urbanization must be overcome. It is an institutional as well as a thematic disconnect on a global scale. Food security is primarily about access to food, not agricultural production. In an increasingly urban world, the locus of food and nutrition security will no longer be rural areas and the global perspective needs to shift appropriately. Hunger is a political as well as economic problem and requires state intervention. Increasing demand for food needs to be met in ecologically sustainable ways while ensuring that the poor have adequate access to food. Migration should be considered a normal process rather than a response to livelihood failure in rural areas. More research is needed on the impact of migrants’ remittances on food security. Urbanization is about much more than the rural poor moving to cities in search of work. In fact, urbanization and migration have the potential to reduce poverty and inequality. Policies that address urban food security need to appreciate the complex relationship between household food security and a range of variables such as income, gender and household size. Climate change is causing increased migration, especially to cities, and bringing about a complex shift in food distribution patterns that includes staple foods being sent to remote rural areas

No. 24: South Africa\u27s Two Diasporas: Engagement and Disengagement

The African diaspora is increasingly viewed as a key to realizing the development potential of international migration. At the same time, there remains considerable confusion about who exactly constitutes the diaspora and which groups should be targeted for “diaspora engagement.” For some, the diaspora consists of all migrants of African birth living outside Africa. The African Union’s definition of the African diaspora, for example, “comprises people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship and nationality.” The World Bank goes a step further to distinguish between an involuntary and a voluntary, a historical and a contemporary, component of the diaspora: “Over four million voluntary immigrants of African origin reside in the West. This ‘voluntary’ Diaspora is distinct from the vastly larger ‘involuntary’ Diaspora that populates North America, Europe, the Caribbean, and Brazil. On matters of African development, however, the interests of both groups often intersect.” Despite differences of emphasis, most definitions of the African diaspora in the migration and development literature agree on two things. First, the African diaspora is located outside the continent, usually in several different countries or regions but primarily in the North. Second, membership of the African diaspora is predicated on an interest or involvement in African development. Former South African President Thabo Mbeki, for example, conveyed both messages when he argued at the 2007 African Ministerial Diaspora Conference that “there is an urgent need for knowledge sharing and economic cooperation between Africa and the Diaspora.” The African Union similarly notes that members of the Diaspora must be “willing to contribute to the development of the continent and the building of the African Union.” Clearly, the African Union and African governments have little interest in engaging with those who have turned their backs on Africa for a new life elsewhere. From that standpoint, a definition of the diaspora that demands actual or potential engagement in African development makes perfect sense. What does not make sense is the idea that diaspora individuals and groups are located exclusively outside Africa. Perhaps, as Bakewell notes, this is not surprising for “these tend to be wealthier, better-educated and more organized groups” with easier access to donor and African government officials and business groups across the globe. This may well be true, but it is also elitist, ignoring the much larger number of ordinary migrants whose “hidden” contributions to development go largely uncelebrated and unrecorded (except perhaps in aggregate remittance statistics). There is no reason why the African diaspora should not include all migrants who maintain links with Africa, and the many migrants from Africa who live and work in other African countries. This paper argues for a spatially inclusive definition of the African diaspora that encompasses all migrants of African origin wherever they live so long as they are outside their country of origin. This would include people of African origin (not just first-generation migrants) resident in the North, in the South and, crucially, in Africa itself. There are, in other words, African diasporas outside Africa and African diasporas within Africa, and the two are often closely connected. Accordingly, this paper: (a) Discusses the development rationale for a revised definition of the African diaspora, which encompasses African migrants living in other countries within the continent (b) Discusses the case of South Africa, which is a major African migrant country of origin and destination (c) Compares the African diaspora in South Africa and the South African diaspora outside South Africa (d) Reflects on the general relevance of the South African case study for our understanding of the role of the diaspora in African development

Between North and South: The EU-ACP Migration Relationship

Before the turn of the century, international migration had an extremely low profile on the global development agenda. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), for example, make no mention at all of international migration. Although a number of studies have attempted to “mainstream” migration into the MDGs after the fact, it is still largely ignored in official assessments of progress made towards them (Usher, 2005; Crush and Frayne 2007; Skeldon, 2008). According to the United Nations (UN), the silence surrounding migration in the MDGs was because it was too divisive and sensitive an issue between developed and developing countries (United Nations Population Fund [UNFPA], 2005). At the time, cooperation between North and South on the governance of migration more broadly seemed highly unlikely. Nation states in the North increasingly believed that their territorial sovereignty was under threat from irregular migration from the South, and states in the South saw their development prospects undermined by a crippling “brain drain” to the North. Repeated efforts by the UN to convene an international conference on migration in the late 1990s were unsuccessful. Since 2000, however, international migration has moved to the top of the global governance agenda and a whole range of bilateral and multilateral partnerships have taken shape (Koser, 2010; Newland, 2010; Betts, 2011; Hansen, Koehler and Money, 2011; Koslowski, 2011; Kunz, Lavenex and Pannizon, 2011). This process began with various initiatives within the UN, notably the 2003 Doyle Report to Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his appointment of a special rapporteur on migration and development. Outside the UN, discussions about international migration gathered momentum with the appointment of the Global Commission on International Migration (GCIM) and the first UN High Level Dialogue (HLD) on International Migration and Development in 2006 (GCIM, 2005; UN, 2006). In 2007, the first meeting of the new Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) was convened in Brussels. This was followed by annual meetings in the Philippines in 2008; Greece in 2009; Mexico in 2010; Switzerland in 2011; and Mauritius in 2012. The GFMD is a state‐led, voluntary, non‐binding consultative process open to all member states and observer states of the UN (Omelianuk, 2008; 2012; Newland, 2012). In 2009, the major UN agencies, plus the International Organization for Migration (IOM), combined to form the Global Migration Group (GMG) with a brief to “promote the wider application of all relevant international and regional instruments and norms relating to migration, and to encourage the adoption of more coherent, comprehensive and better coordinated approaches to the issue of international migration” (GMG, 2012). In 2010, the GMG issued a handbook for states with recommendations on how to mainstream migration into their development planning and vice-versa (GMG, 2010). Another notable feature of the “new optimism” around international migration is the growth of cooperation on the issue within and between regional blocs of states. Regional consultative processes (RCPs) on migration, for example, now exist in many parts of the globe (Thouez and Channac, 2006; Hansen, 2010). While the original focus of many RCPs was migration management, issues of migration and development grew increasingly on their agendas. In Southern Africa, for example, the Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa (MIDSA) was founded by IOM and SAMP as a non-binding consultative forum for Southern African Development Community (SADC) states in 2002 and meets on an annual basis. Originally focussed on regional cooperation in managed migration, the MIDSA agenda has been increasingly shaped by migration and development issues. In addition to the RCPs, geographically dispersed blocs of states also moved migration and development higher on their lists of priorities: these include the Commonwealth, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the African Union (AU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States (AU, 2006a; AU, 2006b; ACP, 2010; Gagnon and Khoudour- Castéras, 2011; de Boeck, 2012; Melde, 2012; OECD, 2012; Ramphal Institute, 2012). The most recent trend is the emergence of increased dialogue and cooperation on international migration between blocs of states. The European Union (EU) has been a central player in many of these initiatives. Following the adoption of its Global Approach to Migration (GAM) in 2005, the EU pursued “mobility partnerships” with major migrant-sending regions and countries (Parkes, 2009; Devisscher, 2011; Reslow, 2012). In relation to Africa, the Euro-African Ministerial Conference on Migration and Development, held in Rabat, Morocco in July 2006, was followed by the Joint EU-AU Declaration on Migration and Development in Tripoli, Libya in November that year (see: www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/47fdfb010.html) One of the outcomes of the declaration is the recent Africa-EU Partnership on Migration, Mobility and Employment (MME). The MME partnership commits the parties to dialogue on a broad range of issues, including diasporas; remittances; brain drain; migrant rights; the social consequences of migration; regular, circular and irregular migration; visa issues; smuggling and trafficking of migrants; readmission and return; refugee protection; the mobility of students; and harmonization processes. The partnership’s current 12-point action plan includes the establishment of an African Institute for Remittances in Addis Ababa, the implementation of the Ouagadougou Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Human Beings and the Diaspora Outreach Initiative. In the space of a decade, how and why has migration shifted from being an issue that was of marginal interest on the international development agenda to one that is increasingly at its centre? How has one of the most contentious North-South issues of the 1990s become the focus of so much bilateral and multilateral dialogue and cooperation between them? The first section of this paper provides a possible answer to these questions, which provides a context for understanding the nature of cooperation between the EU and ACP Group of States on international migration governance

No. 01: Hungry Cities of the Global South

The recent inclusion of an urban Sustainable Development Goal in the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda represents an important acknowledgement of the reality of global urbanization and the many social, economic, infrastructural and political challenges posed by the human transition to a predominantly urban world. However, while the SDG provides goals for housing, transportation, land use, cultural heritage and disaster risk prevention, food is not mentioned at all. This discussion paper aims to correct this unfortunate omission by reviewing the current evidence on the challenges of feeding rapidly-growing cities in the Global South. The paper first documents the magnitude of the urban transition and the variety of indicators that have been deployed to measure the extent of food insecurity amongst urban populations. It then looks at the way in which urban food systems are being transformed by the advent of supermarkets (the so-called “supermarket revolution”) and the growth of the informal food economy. The final section of the paper examines the relationship between formal and informal food retail and asks whether the one is undermining the other or whether they co-exist in an uneasy, though symbiotic, relationship. Against this backdrop, the secondary purpose of the paper is to lay out a research agenda which will guide the Hungry Cities Partnership as it attempts to give greater global prominence to the critical but neglected issue of urban food systems and food insecurity

No. 63: Dystopia and Disengagement: Diaspora Attitudes Towards South Africa

In 2008, South African Brandon Huntley was given refugee status in Canada by the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). The unprecedented decision, based on Huntley’s claim that as a white South African he was the victim of racial persecution in South Africa, caused a firestorm. Interest in the case was particularly intense in South Africa itself where the decision was derided in the media and the South African government lodged a formal protest with the Canadian government. Over 140 high-profile South African academics also filed a petition protesting the decision with the Canadian High Commission in Pretoria. Within weeks, the Canadian Minister of Citizenship and Immigration had lodged an appeal against the IRB decision with the Federal Court of Appeal. Some have claimed that the decision of the Canadian Government to seek to overturn the decision of the IRB was motivated by a desire to appease South Africa. This is highly unlikely. Rather, the Canadian government was concerned about the precedent-setting nature of the case and that it could set the stage for a flood of applications from similarly unskilled white South Africans seeking a route into Canada. In late 2010, Justice James Russell of the Federal Court of Appeal issued an extended judgment upholding the Canadian government’s appeal and sending the Huntley case back to the IRB for reconsideration. The Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear an appeal of this judgment in mid-2012, so the case will be got back to the IRB. Huntley’s lawyers are confident of a second success at the IRB, indicating that the attention given to his case will make him a marked man if he is returned to South Africa. However, Justice Russell provided a systematic and painstaking demolition of virtually every element of the original IRB decision and it seems highly unlikely that Huntley will ever be able to prove that he qualifies for refugee protection status in Canada. The case may still drag on for several more years, however, as Huntley would be entitled to institute a second round of appeals in the courts if his claim is rejected this time. In constructing a narrative to convince IRB judge William Davis that he qualified for protection under the UN Refugee Convention, Huntley and his lawyers attempted to show that he had been the victim of a series of racially-motivated personal assaults and that the state had failed in its duty to protect. None of these supposed attacks were ever reported to the police which proved rather awkward for his case. However, this was explained away with the circular argument that since the police did nothing when whites were attacked, there was no point in reporting the assaults. Huntley’s recounting of his experiences make interesting reading but they were not, in fact, central to the Davis decision. Here we focus on what Davis called the “lifeline” of the Huntley decision: that is, the case made by Huntley’s lawyer, Russell Kaplan and his sister Lara Kaplan, that all whites in South Africa are being systematically targeted because of the colour of their skin. Justice Russell rejected this argument, and the selective evidence presented by the Kaplans, in its entirety. He designated their portrayal of the situation in South Africa the “Kaplan view.” The core elements of the Kaplan view included assertions that all Black South Africans hated white South Africans; that the country was experiencing “reverse apartheid; that black South Africans have “no regard” for the lives of white South Africans; that most violent crimes are committed by black against white South Africans; that the police will do nothing about the crimes committed against white South Africans; that white South Africans are undergoing a form of racial genocide; and that there is systematic discrimination against whites in the workplace. Justice Russell concluded that the Kaplan view was rooted in the personal experience of violent crime by the Kaplan family itself in South Africa. This paper argues that to attribute the Kaplan view purely to the negative personal experiences of the Kaplan family in South Africa is to take too narrow an interpretation. The central elements of the Kaplan view are not unique to the Kaplan family but are produced and reproduced by the white South African diaspora in Canada more generally. The evidence for this assertion comes from a survey of 1,485 South African immigrants in Canada conducted by SAMP in 2010, some 80% of whom had left South Africa after 1990. Between 1991 and 2006, just over 19,000 South Africans moved to Canada, a migration that shows few signs of letting up. Most South African immigrants to Canada are white, highly skilled and educated with many professionals in their ranks. They enter Canada as permanent residents in the economic class. South Africans in Canada are high income earners. For example, 26% of the survey respondents earn more than $200,000 a year and 43$100,000 (compared with only 6% of the overall Canadian population.) The survey respondents reported visiting South Africa relatively often (only 18% had never been back since arriving in Canada) although only 20% return at least once a year. The rest make episodic visits and the vast majority of all visits are connected with family issues and events. Most have family in South Africa to visit. Half of the respondents (54%) have taken out Canadian citizenship and another 30% are permanent residents. South Africans in Canada are neither large nor frequent remitters. Forty-two percent had never remitted funds to South Africa and only 13% do so on a monthly basis. Patterns of asset holding in South Africa show systematic disinvestment over time. Allied to this pattern of disinvestment are low levels of interest in return migration to South Africa. The survey also collected information about the attitudes and perceptions of this group towards their country of origin. The dystopian views advanced by the Kaplan view in the Huntley case fit comfortably within a broader narrative about South Africa by white South Africans in Canada. A considerable number of survey respondents portrayed South Africa as an extremely violent society in which whites live in a constant state of fear and anxiety. Many argued that whites were targeted not because they own a disproportionate share of the wealth in a highly unequal society, but simply because of their colour. The idea that the white population is under siege because of their skin colour extends well beyond personal knowledge of incidents of crime and violence. The theme of racial targeting was driven home by the frequent use of terms such as “apartheid in reverse” and “reverse discrimination.” Attacks on white farmers feature prominently in the narratives and are used as a platform for broader commentary on the supposed brutality of Africa and all Africans. Personal and hearsay stories of violent crime were laced with vituperative accounts of the callous and indifferent response of the police and the government. Another recurrent complaint was how affirmative action discriminated against whites. There is no sympathy for or understanding of the reasons for these policies nor of how they personally might have benefited educationally and economically from the racist policies of the apartheid government. Instead, they represent themselves, and whites in general, as victims. In many cases, the sense of outrage spills over into overtly racist diatribes about Africa and Africans. To rationalise their departure, disengagement and decision never to return to South Africa, this post-apartheid diaspora draws on the same narrative reservoir of images as the lawyers in the Huntley case. It is therefore inadequate to conclude that the Huntley case was simply a rather egregious but exceptional miscarriage of justice. Huntley is, in many ways, emblematic of a more general and troubling discourse about South Africa that circulates amongst white South Africans in Canada

No. 25: Complex Movements, Confused Responses: Labour Migration in South Africa

The end of apartheid undermined the rationale for apartheid-era immigration. Immigration from Europe (which had been declining in the 1980s) dwindled to almost nothing as the new government dissociated itself from the racist immigration policies of the apartheid era. At the same time, downsizing and mine closures in the 1990s led to a dramatic decline in employment opportunities for African migrants in the mining industry. Tens of thousands of local and foreign migrants were retrenched. Although the industry has recovered somewhat, and continues to employ some foreign workers, the overall numbers of temporary migrant workers remain far below the levels of the 1970s and 1980s. The end of apartheid also brought new forms of labour migration to and from South Africa including a marked growth in irregular labour migration from neighbouring countries and the rest of Africa and a major brain drain of skilled professionals, primarily to OECD countries. Since 2000, there have been two further changes. First, the volume of migration from Zimbabwe has grown dramatically as a result of that country\u27s political and economic crisis. Secondly, South Africa adopted a new skills-based labour migration policy. The first section of this paper briefly reviews the post-apartheid decline in permanent immigration and legal temporary labour migration to South Africa. The next section examines some of the new migration trends that have become increasingly important over the last two decades. Finally, the paper examines the current institutional context established by the 2002 Immigration Act. In conclusion, the paper discusses the attractiveness of South Africa for African migrants and the main challenges that face the country in the coming years concerning international migration

No. 60: Linking Migration, Food Security and Development

Two issues have recently risen to the top of the international development agenda: (a) Food Security; and (b) Migration and Development. Each has its own global agency champions, international gatherings, national line ministries and body of research. Global and regional discussions about the relationship between migration and development cover a broad range of policy issues including remittance flows, the brain drain, the role of diasporas and return migration. Strikingly absent from these discussions is any systematic discussion of the relationship between population migration and food security. If the global migration and development debate sidelines food security, the current international food security agenda has a similar disregard for migration. The primary focus of the agenda is food insecurity and undernutrition and how enhanced agricultural production by small farmers can resolve these endemic problems. There is a tendency to ignore the reality that migration is a critical food security strategy for rural households up and down the African continent. If migration is a neglected aspect of discussions about rural food insecurity, it is almost totally absent from considerations of the causes and impact of food security amongst urban populations. In practice, therefore, there is a massive institutional and substantive disconnect between these two development agendas. Current conceptualisations of the food security crisis in Africa provide an inadequate basis for working at the interface between migration and food security. First, there is the assumption that food security is primarily a rural problem that will be resolved through technical innovation amongst smallholders (in the guise of a new Green Revolution). What seems to be forgotten in this romantic view of the African rural household is that its food security is not simply, or even mainly, a function of what it does or does not produce itself. Up and down the continent rural households purchase some or most of their food and they do so with cash that they receive from household members who have migrated to earn income in other places within the country and across borders. The evidence for Southern Africa is that these rural households do not invest remittances in agriculture but in basic necessities, including food purchase. Rural food security, in other words, may be improved but will not be resolved by current approaches to food insecurity. A second assumption is that food security in urban areas is about promoting urban agriculture. The obsession with urban agriculture may be well-intentioned but it derives from misplaced idea that increased food production is the key to urban food security. The primary determinant of food insecurity in African cities is not production shortfalls but the lack of access to food and that means the absence of a regular and reliable income with which to purchase it. Even within the poorest areas of the city, access varies considerably from household to household with wage employment, other income generating activity, the size and structure of the household, the educational level of the household members, access to social grants and being embedded in social networks. There are some recent signs of recognition of the reality that migration and remittances play an important role in the food security strategies of rural households. A recent issue of the journal Food Policy, for example, suggests that “the sending of a migrant means the loss or reduced presence of one or more members of the household. On the consumption side this clearly means fewer mouths to feed and to support in other ways. On the production side, migration means the loss of labor and, in fact, the negative consequences of migration on nutrition are likely to come through this labor loss.” The major positive impact of migration is the remittances sent home by the migrant which can have direct and indirect effects on production and consumption. This is an important issue, but so is the relationship between migration and the food security of the urban household. Food security needs to be “mainstreamed” into the migration and development agenda and migration needs to be “mainstreamed” into the food security agenda. Without such an effort, both agendas will proceed in ignorance of the other to the detriment of both. The result will be a singular failure to understand, and manage, the crucial reciprocal relationship between migration and food security. This report sets out to promote a conversation between the food security and migration agendas in the African context in the light of what we know and what we need to know about their connections. This report focuses primarily on the connections in an urban context. Four main issues are singled out for attention: (a) the relationship between internal migration and urban food security; (b) the relationship between international migration and urban food security; (c) the difference in food security between migrant and non-migrant urban households; and (d) the role of rural-urban food transfers in urban food security. The simplest way to examine the relationship between cross-border migration and food security is to ascertain (a) how international migrants address their own food and nutrition needs in the destination country and (b) what happens to the income that they earn while away from home. The two questions are related to one another for the amount of money available to send home is to some degree contingent on the food-related expenditures of the migrant in the destination country. Migrants rarely live alone and their income may often have to support members of “makeshift” households (not all of whose members can find work) as well as second households. Migration within and to the Southern African region has changed dramatically in recent decades. All of the evidence suggests that the region is undergoing a rapid urban transition through internal migration and natural population increase. There has also been significant growth in temporary cross-border movement within the region. The implications of the region’s new mobility regime for food security in general (and urban food security in particular) need much further exploration and analysis. SAMP has conducted major household surveys in several SADC countries which provide valuable information on food expenditures in migrant-sending households. The 2005 Migration and Remittances Survey (MARS) interviewed 4,276 households with international migrants. Cash remittances were the most important source of income in all countries with 74% of all migrant-sending households receiving remittances (with as many as 95% in Lesotho and 83% in Zimbabwe). In-country wage employment was a source of income for 40% of households followed by remittances in kind (37%). Remittances in-kind are particularly important in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. At the other end of the spectrum, only 8% of households receive income from the sale of agricultural produce and only 5% receive social grants. The vast majority of households (93%) purchase food and groceries with their income. No other expenditure category comes close although a significant minority of households pay for cooking fuel, transportation, clothing, utilities, education and medical expenses. A mere 15% spend income on agricultural inputs (mainly in Swaziland). The proportion of households spending remittances on food was over 80%. Average household expenditures on food were R288 per month which is much greater than the amounts spent on other common categories such as transportation, education and medical expenses. The average monthly expenditure of remittances on food was R150 per month. In other words, remittances provided over 50% of average household income spent on food. Without remittances the amount being spent on food would drop precipitously. Remittances are therefore a critical component of food security for migrant-sending households. The SAMP study found that 28% of households spend more than 60% of their income on food. Even with remittances, only 17% said that they had always or almost always had enough food in the previous year. Cash remittances are not the only way in which migration contributes to household security as many migrants also send food back home as part of their in-kind remittance “package.” Further proof of the importance of migration to household food security and other basic needs is provided in the types of goods that migrants send home. There was little evidence of luxury goods being sent. Instead, clothing (received by 41% of households) and food (received by 29%) were the items most frequently brought or sent. In the case of Mozambique, 60% of households received food and in Zimbabwe, 45%. The next question is whether migrants are more food insecure than longer term residents of the poorer areas of Southern African cities. AFSUN conducted a survey in 11 SADC countries in 9 countries in 2008 which helps to answer this question. Because access to income is a critical determinant of food security in urban areas, it is important to know if non-migrant households are more or less likely to access regular and reliable sources of income, both formal and informal. Across the sample as a whole, unemployment rates were high with nearly half of both migrant and non-migrant households receiving no income from regular wage work. This suggests that migrants do not find it harder to obtain wage employment than permanent residents in the city. Migrant households do find it easier to derive income from casual work while non-migrant households were more involved in running informal and formal businesses (20% versus 14%). Very few households in either category earn any income from the sale of home-grown agricultural produce. The similarities in the access of migrant and non-migrant households to the labour market and to various income-generating activities suggests that they might have similar income levels and, in turn, levels of food security. In fact, there was one distinct difference in the income profile of migrant and non-migrant households. About a third of the households in each group fell into the lowest income tercile. However, 36% of nonmigrant households were in the upper income tercile, compared to only 29% of migrant households. The situation was reversed with the middle income tercile. In other words, migrant status is not a completely reliable predictor of whether a household will be income poor. However, nonmigrant households are likely to have a better chance of having better incomes, primarily because some are able to access better-paying jobs. The Household Food Insecurity Scale (HFIAS) measures household access to food on a 0 (most secure) to 27 (most insecure) point scale. In terms of the relationship between the HFIAS and migration, migrant households had a mean score of 10.5 and non-migrant households a score of 8.9. This suggests that non-migrant households have a better chance of being food secure than migrant households. The Household Food Insecurity Access Prevalence (HFIAP) Indicator. found that only 16% of migrant households were “food secure” compared with 26% of non-migrant households. Although levels of food insecurity are disturbingly high for both types of household, migrant households stand a greater chance of being food insecure. Another question is whether there are any differences between migrant and non-migrant households in where they obtain their food in the city. Migrant households were more likely than non-migrant households to patronise supermarkets. The opposite was true with regard to the informal food economy. This may have to do with the fact that nonmigrant households would be more familiar with alternative food sources compared with recent in-migrants, in particular, who would be more likely to know about and recognise supermarket outlets. A second difference is the extent to which households rely on other households for food, either through sharing meals or food transfers. This was more common among migrant than non-migrant households, suggesting the existence of stronger social networks amongst migrants. Thirdly, non-migrant households were more likely to grown some of their own food than migrant households. The majority of poor households in Southern African cities either consist entirely of migrants or a mix of migrants and non-migrants. Rapid urbanization, increased circulation and growing cross-border migration have all meant that the number of migrants and migrant households in the city has grown exponentially. This is likely to continue for several more decades as urbanization continues. We cannot simply assume that all poor urban households are alike. While levels of food insecurity are unacceptably high amongst all of them, migrant households do have a greater chance of being food insecure with all of its attendant health and nutritional problems. This fact needs to be recognised by policy-makers and acted upon

No. 56: Right to the Classroom: Educational Barriers for Zimbabweans in South Africa

This report examines the obstacles to access by Zimbabwean children and students to schools and tertiary institutions in South Africa. There is a common assumption in South Africa that these children and students have no right to an educa­tion in South Africa. In fact, this view contravenes various international human rights conventions to which South Africa is a signatory. At the regional level, it is inconsistent with the SADC Education Protocol. At the national level, it violates the South African Constitution as well as legislation and stated government policies concerning the access of all children in the country to education. The question addressed in this report is whether school boards and principals follow popular sentiment or whether they honour international, regional and national obligations. The report focuses specifically on the case of Zimbabwean migrant children and students, following persistent reports that they are regularly denied access to the South African education system. The report shows that school boards and principals are caught between contradictory instructions from the Departments of Education and Home Affairs. The former, acting in a way that is consistent with the Bill of Rights, directs that schools should not deny education to any child, regardless of their national origin or legal status in the country. The Department of Home Affairs, on the other hand, follows the directives of the 2002 Immigration Act which places schools in the position of having to enforce immigration policy. This contradiction certainly needs to be resolved and there is only one way this could be done: by amending the immigration legislation and regulations to make it clear that it is not the duty of schools to deny an education to some children or to report them to the authorities. Levels of xenophobia are extremely high in South African society. Xenophobic attitudes culminated in widespread xenophobic violence in 2008 that left over 60 people dead and tens of thousands displaced from their communities. Among their number were many children. Migrant children were therefore directly exposed to the violence and venom of xenophobic mobs. Many more would have witnessed these disturbing scenes in the media. The other question addressed in this report is whether xenophobia permeates the school system as well. In other words, once the obstacles to school access are overcome, what kind of reception do migrant children receive from South African teachers and pupils. Some isolated case studies have suggested that non-South African children are not made to feel welcome in South African schools and that the xenophobic attitudes of parents are reproduced by their children. This study affords the opportunity to revisit this question and to ask how Zimbabwean children are treated by their fellow learners and by teachers in the classroom and playground. The report is based on research in six communities in Cape Town and Johannesburg conducted in September 2010 and examines the experiences of Zimbabwean migrant parents, children and students who seek to gain admission to public schools and tertiary institutions in South Africa. The report first examines the constitutional and legal rights of foreign migrants to an education in South Africa. The next section reviews the findings of previous studies that suggest that migrant children and students face significant difficulties and prejudice in South Africa. The ensuing sections of the report present and discuss our research findings on the current experiences of Zimbabwean migrants with the South African educational system. Finally, the report makes recommendations on how the situation can be improved

No. 03: Urban Food Deserts and Climate Change in African Cities

The underlying assumption in much of the Euro-American food deserts literature is that urban food deserts are dynamic spaces, expanding and contracting with the advent and withdrawal of supermarkets. This discussion paper argues that to tie such dynamism purely to the spatial behaviour of formal food retail outlets is both narrow and inappropriate in the African context, where the use of the food deserts concept requires a sophisticated understanding of the multiple market and non-market food sources, of the spatial mobility and dynamism of the informal food economy, of the changing drivers of household food insecurity and the local conditions that lead to compromised diets, undernutrition and social exclusion. The paper discusses the case of Cape Town, South Africa, where supermarkets command a significant share of food retailing and have been expanding into all areas of the city. After tracing the spatial expansion of supermarkets in the last two decades, the paper examines the nature of the food interactions between modern retail, the informal food economy and food access in poor urban neighborhoods from the perspective of consumer households. It argues that the concept of urban food deserts needs to be reformulated and redefined to fit African realities since there is very little evidence that the growth of supermarkets across the city and in low-income areas is eliminating urban food deserts. The paper also addresses one of the major silences in the food deserts literature; that is, the relationship between climate change and urban food security