This research and analysis piece will result in new guidance on urban analysis and programming for the World Food Programme.
Previous models to differentiate urban from rural draw a clear line between the two – even the World Bank’s continuum model still has a clear divide. The new guidance proposes an overlapping model of ‘urban’ and ‘rural’ that better reflects the reality – where small market towns are rural from the perspective of the big city, and urban from the perspective of the subsistence farmer.
The guidance considers four broad ways in which urban areas are different: complexity, diversity, dynamism, and risk – and then considers the implications of these on urban programming for emergency response, safety net development and in WFP’s role in supporting wider humanitarian action.
The guidance considers the importance of urban context analysis, and looks in some detail at food security assessment tools – most of which were developed in rural African settings and which are being shown to be less robust in urban settings for a range of reasons. It also increases the attention paid to response option analysis, setting out a process by which this can take place.
The guidance is being finalised within WFP and should be published in 2017