ABSTRACT Globally, there is collective agreement on the need to advance equity within food systems to promote health equity, food security, and social justice through structural transformation. Food systems are shaped by power asymmetries across scales and actors, which influence the realization of the right to food and constrain the agency of marginalized groups. In low‐resource settings, policy instruments play a central role in guiding agricultural and economic development. Using the systematic equity action‐analysis (SEAA) framework, this paper examines how policies produce and mediate food security outcomes for marginalized populations in Kenya, and demonstrates the utility of the SEAA framework for policy analysis. Sixteen policy documents published between 2020 and June 2025 were purposively selected to represent multiple governance scales. A critical discourse analysis was conducted guided by the questions outlined in the SEAA framework. Results indicate that addressing the social processes underpinning resource allocation and power redistribution is essential for achieving equitable and sustainable food security. The research highlights pathways for embedding equity in policy formulation and implementation, including fostering coherent worldviews, recognizing diverse forms of agency, and strengthening accountability mechanisms. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse on power in food systems by providing evidence on the adoption of the SEAA framework by policymakers and researchers for translating knowledge to equity action.
ABSTRACT Despite sustained international commitments to end hunger, food insecurity remains extremely high in sub‐Saharan Africa. Current political debates increasingly emphasize productive capacities as the foundation of sustainable food systems, but empirical evidence on how these capacities translate into improved food security—and through which channels—remains limited. This study analyzes the impact of productive capacities on food security in Sub‐Saharan Africa, focusing on transmission mechanisms such as institutional quality through regulatory quality, access to energy, and total income from natural resources. Using principal component analysis (PCA), we constructed a food security index across four dimensions (availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability). Our study encompasses 42 countries in sub‐Saharan Africa and spans the period from 2000 to 2022. To capture both dynamic effects and indirect transmission mechanisms, we employ robust econometric approaches, including the Driscoll–Kraay estimators, the system GMM method, and the PVAR model. The results indicate that the development of productive capacities significantly improves food security levels in sub‐Saharan Africa. However, this effect is largely indirect. Institutional quality—particularly regulatory efficiency—and access to electricity appear as the main transmission channels through which productive capacities translate into improvements in food security outcomes. Conversely, natural resource rents play a limited and sometimes counterproductive mediating role, thus confirming the resource curse hypothesis. The results highlight that strengthening productive capacities alone is insufficient to ensure food security, unless supported by effective institutions and reliable access to energy, as well as a reduction in excessive dependence on resource‐related rents. Political efforts should therefore prioritize integrated strategies that combine economic diversification, institutional reforms, and energy infrastructure development. Such an approach is essential for achieving sustainable and resilient food security in sub‐Saharan Africa.
ABSTRACT Food insecurity remains a major challenge in developing countries, particularly in African countries where natural disasters and conflict have increasingly reversed the efforts of many policymakers and development practitioners. Although financial inclusion and remittances have emerged as key drivers of food insecurity, the magnitude of their effects is still debated, questioned, and inconclusive. This paper deepens the empirical analysis of the determinants of food insecurity by considering the simultaneous effects of financial inclusion and remittances in Cameroon, a country where internal conflict has worsened the levels of food insecurity. Based on data extracted from the 2017 Cameroon Finscope Consumer Survey, we used several estimation techniques including the two‐stage least square (2SLS) and heteroscedasticity‐based instrumental variable approach to check for consistency of the results and to minimize the potential bias associated with endogeneity. The empirical findings reveal that improving access to remittances and having access to financial services significantly reduces food insecurity. The effects are higher among those with formal financial services. The results are consistent across the different dimensions of food insecurity and financial inclusion and the methods used. It is therefore imperative for policymakers, especially in developing countries, to advocate for universal access to financial services. It is also important to consider the role of remittances when setting or implementing food security interventions.
ABSTRACT This article analyzes the emergence, development, and eventual interruption of the urban food strategy of Gualeguaychú, an intermediate city in Argentina whose trajectory offers valuable insights into how local governments can operationalize components of the Right to Food and Food Sovereignty. The strategy's entry point was a high‐profile incident of glyphosate intoxication that intensified public concern about the health implications of agrochemical use. In response, the municipal government regulated agrochemical spraying but soon broadened its agenda towards a more comprehensive municipal food strategy aimed at promoting agroecology, strengthening short food supply chains, and fostering healthier diets. Was there a societal demand for such comprehensive change, or was this redirection primarily state‐driven? Drawing mainly on qualitative research—including public policy analysis, institutional document review, and interviews—the article examines how the strategy was implemented, which instruments were deployed, and how municipal–local food‐system stakeholder relations shaped its evolution. In doing so, it seeks to identify the key enabling factors and constraints that explain both the progression of the strategy and the conditions that ultimately led to its interruption. The findings show that the city achieved promising advances: It approved pioneering local legislation, supported agroecological production, and created participatory spaces for commercialization. Nonetheless, the strategy was ultimately interrupted due to the political turnover at the end of 2023. Structural weaknesses—such as the absence of a dedicated implementation team, limited stakeholder governance, and insufficient long‐term institutional and financial anchoring—left the strategy vulnerable to political change. By reconstructing this trajectory, the article highlights both the possibilities and the fragility of municipal‐led food policy initiatives in Latin America. Gualeguaychú's experience illustrates how the Right to Food can be locally advanced—but also how easily progress can be reversed when institutionalization is weak and continuity safeguards are absent.
ABSTRACT Cities have become the level at which the right to food is either operationalized or left abstract, yet we have little comparative vocabulary for describing how they do it. This article examines local food observatories and monitoring mechanisms in four cities, namely, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Milan, and Berlin. It reads them against the four constitutive elements of experimentalist governance and finds that neither pair of cities completes the experimentalist cycle. The Chinese cases experiment extensively with means though their framework goals remain fixed and centrally set. The European cases deliberate openly over goals but show little evidence of the peer comparison and recursive revision that distinguish experimentalist governance from participatory consultation. The two sets of arrangements are therefore truncated at opposite ends of the same cycle, and the label administrative experimentalism and participatory experimentalism are used here to mark where each truncation falls. The article then asks what each arrangement makes claimable. Monitoring in Shanghai and Shenzhen produces data that flows upward and supports the evaluation of officials by their superiors. Monitoring in Milan and Berlin produces data that flow outward and support civil society scrutiny. Neither converts monitoring into a resource for individual rights claims. The study is exploratory and its four cities were selected because they are recognized innovators, so the findings are offered as concepts and hypotheses rather than as causal conclusions.
