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Urban agriculture (UA) has recently received increasing attention in both scholarly and policy cycles as a potential tool for poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper focuses on urban crop cultivation (UCC) and examines men’s and women’s motives and needs in UCC, the (perceived) contribution of UCC to household livelihoods, and the benefits men and women derive from it. Although the contribution of UCC to overall household food and incomes appeared to be modest, for the majority of farming households such benefits were nonetheless greatly valued and bore varied and important meanings for men and women. The paper also examines the implications of recent national UA policy responses in Kenya for urban development and household livelihoods, and for equitable distribution of UA’s benefits for men and women.

This paper deals with the gender aspects of urban livestock keeping in Eldoret, Kenya. It shows that men and women play different but complementary roles in livestock keeping. Men show greater preference for and are more involved – in terms of decision-making and responsibility taking – with large livestock and where income is the primary motive for livestock keeping, and perform tasks of an outdoor nature and/or which require considerable technical knowledge. On the other hand, women prefer and exercise greater control over small livestock, make the most decisions about consumption use of livestock products, and perform home-based routine tasks. However, there are instances where men and women cross gender boundaries, for instance where labour of the opposite gender is absent in the household, or as a strategy to control benefits accruing to the livestock. In terms of livelihood outcomes, women's role in livestock keeping is geared more towards improving household nutritional and food security status, while men's role is motivated more by personal benefits.

This article highlights the labour contributions of men and women in urban crop cultivation in Eldoret, Kenya. Divisions of labour in urban gardening were mediated by social constructs of masculinity and femininity, gender differentials in entitlements and farming knowledge and intra-household power relations. The resulting labour distribution patterns manifested itself in the type of crops men and women took responsibility for, the specific agricultural tasks they performed and the spatial segregation of men's and women's activities and tasks. Traditional gender-related labour boundaries were also challenged and reworked. With regard to livelihood outcomes, women's labour contributed more directly to household food security, although men were increasingly getting involved in subsistence farming, which held prospects for improved productivity and therefore enhanced household food security.

At a time of economic crisis and sharply rising food prices, urban farming is increasingly helping to sustain households. Gender is generally thought to be a key variable in this but studies are still in their infancy. Looking at the phenomenon from a livelihood perspective and based on a survey carried out in Buea, Cameroon, this paper deals with a number of key issues related to gender and urban gardening, including access to resources, division of labour and the benefits and challenges encountered. An additional variable, namely the marital status of the gardener, is also considered. There appear to be important differences between male and female gardeners in various respects, and marital status plays a role not only among female gardeners but to some extent among male gardeners too.

Farming among urban dwellers in Sub-Saharan Africa is a common phenomenon. The present study, carried out in a medium-sized town in Kenya, not only confirmed this but also showed that farming by urban dwellers in the rural areas was even more important for these households’ livelihoods than farming in town. However, those who could benefit most from farming, i.e. the urban poor, appeared to be underrepresented among urban farming households and those urban poor who did farm, either in urban or in rural areas, performed worse than the farming non-poor. The importance of farming as a livelihood source is illustrated by the fact that in years with very little or no harvest due to drought, many of the poor farming households faced food shortages.

Farming in town, be it livestock or crop production, is often considered detrimental to the urban environment. Less well known are the beneficial effects of farming for the urban environment. Both the positive and negative effects have been poorly researched. This paper deals with urban horticulture in Cotonou (Benin) and focuses on the role this sector plays in relation to two urban environmental aspects, namely solid waste and liquid waste. The sector was found to be currently contributing to a better environment in various ways and, potentially, the benefits could be even greater.

This volume attempts to dig deeper into what is currently happening in Africa's agricultural and rural sector and to convince policymakers and others that it is important to look at the current African rural dynamics in ways that connect metropolitan demands for food with value chain improvements and agro-food cluster innovations. It is essential to go beyond a 'development bureaucracy' and a state-based approach to rural transformation, such as the one that often dominates policy debate in African government circles, organizations like the African Union and the UN, and donor agencies.

In some areas in sub-Saharan Africa a rural proletariat has emerged, consisting mainly of labourers living and working on plantations and large mixed farms. Besides these fully proletarianized estate workers, there is also a category of workers that can be labelled 'semi-proletarianized'. They live outside the agricultural estates, perform seasonal agricultural wage labour and still have control over some means of (re)production, usually a small piece of land. Based on a survey of large farms and households conducted in 1989 in Kenya's Trans Nzoia District, the present authors investigate whether differences in the degree of proletarianization of workers are reflected in differences in socioeconomic situation and living conditions (such as access to a latrine and improved drinking water, the number of household members per room, level of food consumption, nutritional condition). They also compare the situation of labourers with that of a group of non-labourers (households in which nobody had performed any agricultural wage labour in the year preceding the survey). They conclude that in terms of land and income as well as living conditions, labourers are disadvantaged when compared with non-labourers. With respect to the labourers, a higher degree of proletarianization coincides with a lower level of income but not necessarily with poorer living conditions.

Water services in urban Africa are generally in a bad state and low-income neighbourhoods are not usually connected to the municipal water supply and infrastructure. The Kenyan government attempted to address these problems with its Water Act of 2002 and by creating water and sewerage companies. This chapter recounts how this idea was adopted and transformed by people in the Wandiege neighbourhood of Kisumu town who improved their local water and sanitation situation by setting up their own water supply system in an innovative way. It finally describes how this innovation was transformed in one low-income neighbourhood in Kisumu in two major steps: (i) by creating a local water supply system that was developed, constructed and managed by the community itself; and (ii) by transforming this project into an officially registered water and sewerage company at neighbourhood level. Keywords: Kenyan government; Kisumu town; sewerage company; Wandiege neighbourhood; Water Act of 2002; water company; water-sector reforms

Very little is known about street foods in sub‐Sahara Africa. We investigated the scope of the street food phenomenon in Nairobi, both in the past and present, with the aim of establishing circumstances surrounding its practice and its function in the urban food supply. We found that street food vending and consumption in Nairobi rapidly increased during the previous two decades, instigated by the need for affordable food among low‐income urban dwellers and the need for employment. It is an expanding and thriving phenomenon, especially among the urban poor, and climbs up the socio‐economic ladder due to increasing monetary demands. In addition to being a food supply channel for the urban poor, street food vending in Nairobi provides employment opportunities to a labour force that would otherwise be unemployed. There is need to legitimize the sector with simple regulations that make the food safe but not expensive.