The rapid growth of cities in Sub-Saharan Africa has been accompanied by a boom in informal settlements in these areas. The challenges that informal housing pose to urban planning have been well documented, especially their location in hazard-prone areas and limited access to infrastructure resources and services for their residents. However, the interaction between informal housing, infrastructure access, and food insecurity has not been extensively studied. Using household survey data collected from 11 cities in Southern Africa, this chapter demonstrates that, among the surveyed households, housing informality and infrastructure access predicted household food insecurity. This chapter also identified conditionally dependent relationships between housing informality, food insecurity and infrastructure access among the surveyed households. The results may suggest a potential hierarchy or trade-off in resource access among informal households.
Citation: 2017. In B. Frayne, J. Crush, and C. McCordic (Eds.), Food and nutrition security in Southern African cities. London: Routledge and Earthscan.
