Health, wellbeing and nutrition
Many residents in African cities face considerable challenges relating to health, nutrition and wellbeing, along with marginalisation or exclusion in accessing healthcare – especially those living in poverty. Yet these difficulties are often masked within wider data and policy debates by the so-called “urban advantage”.
Poor access to clean water, sanitation and affordable quality health services, as well as malnutrition, have made many people living in African cities – particularly in informal settlements – vulnerable to communicable diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis. The Covid-19 crisis has highlighted the extent of health vulnerabilities in cities and the wider consequences for national and global health security, along with the fragility of food and nutrition security in many urban centres.
Improving integration between multiple city systems – including healthcare, food, water and sanitation, waste management, energy and spatial planning – is key to securing better health, wellbeing and nutrition outcomes for residents in African cities. This domain looks at the political dimensions underlying the ability of governments to provide affordable, higher quality health services and food, exploring potential policy approaches and interventions to improve access and availability.
Within the health, wellbeing and nutrition domain, we are focusing on the following cities:
LATEST NEWS from ACRC
Podcast: Improving access to healthy school meals in Nairobi’s informal settlements
Veronica Mwangi joins Chris Jordan to talk about the issue of healthy diets and nutrition in African cities – particularly among children living in Nairobi’s informal settlements.
Handing on the African Cities Research Consortium
The University of Manchester has recently advertised a new role – which involves taking over as CEO of the African Cities Research Consortium. In this blog post, our current CEO, Professor Diana Mitlin reflects on her own career, experiences and what comes next.
New research: Assessing climate change impacts and solutions across 12 African cities
For ACRC research, climate change was a key crosscutting theme, which we investigated across all of our 12 cities and eight urban development domains. The synthesis report was led by ICLEI Africa and co-authored by Hayley Leck, Zakiyya Atkins, Luka Dreyer, Yakhuluntu Dubazana, Clara Marais, Lorena Pasquini, Tashi Piprek, Meggan Spires and Kate Strachan.