Communities in urban low-income areas cope with a multitude of crises of varying levels of severity. The Urban Food Futures programme considers local responses to these crises as a critical entry point for engagement. These responses tend to be built on social capital, and highlight the crucial role women play in coping with crises - both at a household and community level. However, local communities, nor local governments, can transform food systems alone. Successful bottom-up coping mechanisms may have the potential to seed systemic transformation but, achieving this demands that we work to identify promising strategies and to institutionalise their support. The extensive network of community kitchens across Cape Town are one such example. The growing number of livelihoods in the informal economy are another. Both offer important safety nets for food-insecure communities across most African cities. Institutionalising support for community kitchens and valourising informal livelihoods for contribution they make towards vibrant and food secure cities are key focus areas of the Urban Food Future’s programme.

The five pathways are:

• Coping with crises – learning for transformation

• Mutual accountability – with pens and pots to parliament

• Rethinking urban production in a +2°C world (Controlled Environment Agriculture)

• Trading to eat – advancing the informal economy’s contribution to food security

• Crowdsourcing data for food system transformation