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RUAF-phase 1 (1999-2004): Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security

The RUAF-phase 1 project was coordinated by ETC-Urban Agriculture and implemented in coordination with 7 regional institutes (UMP-LAC & IPES; Ecuador, MDP-ESA, Zimbabwe; IAGU, Senegal; IWMI-Ghana and IWMI-India, and IGSNRR, China) and 2 Northern partners (TUAN, USA; City Farmer, Canada).

The RUAF-phase 1 was basically a global information and communication project aiming to enhance awareness of policy makers and development organisations of the importance of urban agriculture for urban poverty alleviation, nutrition and food security, waste recycling, etcetera, to improve access of local stakeholders in urban agriculture to research data and project experiences and to facilitate regional networking and exchange of information on urban agriculture.

The main strategies applied by RUAF in order to realise its objectives were the following:

  • Establishment of regional resource centres on urban agriculture and strengthening the capacities of the regional partners
  • Establishment of a website and databases (bibliographic, contacts, funding resources)
  • Publication of the Urban Agricultural Magazine, books, videos and CD-roms on key aspects of urban agriculture
  • Organisation of international E-conferences and regional workshops
  • Support to local initiatives to formulate policies and action plans on urban agriculture
  • Facilitation of the integration of urban agriculture in the policies and programmes of international organisations (FAO, HABITAT, EC, CTA, a/o)

The results of the RUAF-project were positively evaluated by an evaluation mission in 2003 and the mission identified some future challenges for the RUAF partners, which led to the formulation of the Cities Farming for the Future project

Funding: Netherlands Directorate of Development Cooperation (DGIS, the Netherlands) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada) Co-funding for specific activities was obtained from CTA, GTZ, DSE, Sida, NOVIB, Miserior, Cordaid and DFID.

List of publications 

  • Resource Guide on Urban Agriculture, CTA Working Document Series, number 8001, Ede, 1999
  • Robert Pederson, Aileen Robertson and Henk de Zeeuw Urban Food and Nutrition Action Plan, WHO-Europe / ETC-RUAF, Copenhagen 2000
  • Rachel Nugent and Henk de Zeeuw Proceedings of the E-conference "Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture on the Policy Agenda", 21 st August - 30 th September 2000, FAO / ETC-RUAF, Rome, 2000
  • Shingirayi Mushamba Proceedings of the Regional workshop on Political Economy of urban agriculture, 4 th -16 th December 2000, Harare, MDP, Harare, 2000
  • Bakker et al "Growing Cities, Growing Food; Urban Agriculture at the Policy agenda", DSE, Feldafing, 2001
  • Joe Nasr Proceedings of the Workshop "Agriculture - urban interface", 13 th -16 th June 2001, Lebanon. CERMOC / ETC-RUAF, Lebanon 2001
  • Gordon Prain and Henk de Zeeuw Proceedings of the Workshop on Appropriate methodologies for urban agriculture research, planning, implementation and evaluation, 2 nd -5 th October 2001, Nairobi. ETC-RUAF / CGIAR-Urban Harvest, Leusden, 2001
  • Henk de Zeeuw Proceedings of the E-conference "Appropriate Methodologies for research, policy development, planning, implementation and evaluation in urban agriculture", 2nd -5th October 2001, Nairobi, CGIAR-Urban Harvest / ETC-RUAF, Leusden, 2001
  • An Annotated Bibliography on Urban Agriculture, ETC-RUAF, Leusden, 2002
  • Wilfrid Hertog et al Proceedings of the Regional workshop on Reuse of waste water in urban agriculture, 3 rd -7 th June Ouagadougou. CREPA / ETC-RUAF, Leusden, 2002
  • Olufunke O. Cofie, René van Veenhuizen and Pay Drechsel , Contribution of Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture to Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa", Paper presented at the Africa session of 3rd WWF, Kyoto, 17th March 2003
  • Veenhuizen, René van, and Wilfrid Hertog, Urban Agriculture, Securing Food for Urban People, For Conference Reader to IFPRI Conference, Bonn, Germany September 2001
  • Cd-rom "Urban Agriculture Today! ETC-RUAF (English, Spanish, French versions), Leusden, 2002
  • Cai Jianming et al Proceedings of the Conference on Peri-Urban and Rural Agro-tourism in Mainland China and Taiwan, October 2002, Bejing, IGSNRR, Bejing, 2003
  • Liqa Raschid-Sally, Sarath Abayawardana and Henk de Zeeuw Proceedings of the International experts meeting on reuse of waste water: "Confronting the Livelihood and Environmental Realities" 11th - 14th November 2002, Hyderabad, IWMI-India / ETC-RUAF, Hyderabad, 2003
  • Michael Baumeister and Henk de Zeeuw Proceedings of the Electronic conference on Optimising agricultural land use in the city area, 3 th -22 th November 2003, UMP (UNDP/Habitat) / ETC-RUAF, Leusden, 2003
  • Shingirai Mushamba et al, Proceedings of the SADC Ministers Conference on Urban Agriculture, 27-28 of August 2003, Harare, MDP, Harare
  • Wynn Richards and Sarah Godfrey (eds) Urban Livestock keeping in Sub-Saharan Africa Report on Workshop held 3-5 March 2003 in Nairobi organized by DFID-LPP, NRI, Mazingira Institute and RUAF
  • Dorothy Mushayavanhu and Shingirayi Mushamba. Policy brief on legislative and policy issues on urban agriculture in Zimbabwe, MDP, Harare, 2003
  • Henk de Zeeuw, "Key Sheet Urban Agriculture" In: DFID/DGIS Policy Information System, 2003
  • Video "Urban Agriculture" (2 x 20 minutes; English, Spanish, French and Arabic versions, on video cassette and Cd-rom), ETC-RUAF, Leusden, June 2002
  • Pay Drechsel et al. Fact Sheet on Urban Agriculture with wastewater, IWMI-West-Africa Office, Accra, Ghana, 2003
  • Joe Nasr and Martina Padilla (eds) L'Interface entre agricultura et urbanisation dans le bassin mediterraneen, CERMOC, Institute Agronomique de Montpellier, ENSP and RUAF, Editions Delta, 2004
  • Urban Agriculture Magazine: 16 issues (English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic versions)
  • Joanna Wilbers, Henk de Zeeuw and Diana Lee-Smith (eds) Women Feeding Cities: Gender Mainstreaming in Urban Food Production and Food Security, Proceedings of the workshop, Leusden, The Netherlands: ETC-RUAF/Nairobi, Kenya: CIP-Urban Harvest, 2004

Contact: ruaf@remove-this.etcnl.nl
Website: http://www.ruaf.org