The
focus of this toolkit is on why it is critical for planners in Africa to think
about food issues, and more specifically, how to equip them to do this as
a planning educator. This toolkit was designed to help planners develop
theoretical and practical knowledge about food-sensitive planning,
with the specific aim of supporting the teaching around these issues in a
context-sensitive way in Africa.
While this is a more advanced discipline in North America, Europe and elsewhere, it is
important to note that food systems planning in the African context is still being devel-
oped. As such, this toolkit aims to be a working framework and part of an ongoing con-
versation that needs to be much more rigorous, nuanced and rooted in local context. This
development will need to happen in an iterative way with practice informing these ideas
and the way in which they are taught. We hope this toolkit will help educators further
develop this conversation with their students.
Included in the toolkit you will find:
1. An introduction to the toolkit: this section provides an understanding of the toolkit
itself, giving an overview of the project that it came out of, the rationale, who it is de-
signed for, what it aims to do and how to use it. It also outlines the principles that the
toolkit is based on.
2. An introduction to why it is important for planners in Africa to think about food:
this section includes an explanation of why food has not been on the planning agenda,
why planners in the Global North started thinking about food and why it is important
for planners in Africa to think about food in their planning processes.
3. Suggested course outline: this section includes a flexible seven-part framework for
a course on food and planning in Africa that is adaptable for different purposes and
contexts. .
4. Case studies: this section provides three diverse case studies that give an idea of the
wide range of ways in which planning is considering food issues in other contexts, as
a starting point to think about the wide range of possibilities in Africa.