How Do the Urban Poor Stay Alive? Food Provision in a Squatter Settlement of Bissau, Guinea-Bissau

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Periodical article

Title:	How Do the Urban Poor Stay Alive? Food Provision in a Squatter Settlement of Bissau, Guinea-Bissau
Author:	Lourenço-Lindell, Ilda
Year:	1996
Periodical:	African Urban Quarterly (ISSN 0747-6108)
Volume:	11
Issue:	2-3
Period:	May-August
Pages:	163-168
Language:	English
Notes:	biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:	Guinea-Bissau West Africa
Subjects:	urban poverty food security urban areas Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Urbanization and Migration Economics and Trade Agriculture, Agronomy, Forestry food supply Income generation poverty food production
Abstract:	Approaches to food insecurity tend to be partial, focusing narrowly on food availability or on people's endowment or ownership situation. This article discusses how the very poor survive in a predominantly cash economy and a rapidly changing urban environment. While food production by urban dwellers is an important component in their food security, solidarity is the piece of the puzzle missing in most analyses of food security. Food gifts and poverty sharing are of crucial importance for urban food security. Command over food depends not only on availability of food and people's endowment situation, but also on assistance networks, often determined by cultural codes. The analysis draws on empirical data from Bandim, a squatter area of Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, collected in 1992 and 1995 through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Bibliogr., sum. in English and French.