Masifundise is excited to announce their research partnership and collaboration with the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of Western Cape. This research will explore the impacts of Covid-19 responses on African food systems in South Africa, Ghana and Tanzania.
The overall aim of this study is to investigate how government policies and practices affected and reshaped different parts of the food system in the three African countries. This research seeks to bring to the fore the voices, experiences, strategies and priorities of marginalised actors in the food system – especially women and small-scale farmers, fishers, traders, processors and retailers in the informal sector. This study will be focused on achieving the right to food, improved livelihoods within food systems and increased voice and agency for women, the economically marginalised and the systematically impoverished.
Masifundise has chosen the small-scale fishing communities of Langebaan and Struisbaai in order to expose the fault lines that exist in localised food systems as well as explore the difficulties faced by small-scale fishers during COVID-19 as result of government regulations.
This one-year orientated project will end in 2021 and it is hoped that it will influence African governments, development agencies, businesses and civil societies in their responses to Covid-19 and future pandemics.