Global urban health leaders given deep insight into Cape Town’s food system

As part of the recent 2024 Partnership for Healthy Cities Summit in Cape Town, delegates from more than 50 cities around the world were able to gain first-hand experience with the local food environment by visiting a local traditional meat market and sampling local street food, visiting a community food garden, learning how community members address health needs and challenges through traditional and modern practices, and experiencing firsthand some of the traditional and contemporary cultural highlights of Langa.

The Partnership for Healthy Cities, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with the World Health Organization and global health organization Vital Strategies, is a global network of 74 cities whose leaders have committed to prevent Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs)—including cancer, diabetes, heart disease and chronic lung disease—and injuries through proven interventions.

The SA Urban Food & Farming Trust was able to share insights gained through years of sustained work in Langa with farmers, meat traders, cultural partners and others, and in return to gain perspectives from urban health practitioners, officials and leaders from Tibet to Argentina, Kenya to Canada.

We also had 70 delegates joining the food systems walking tour of the historic central city of Cape Town, which was created in 2022 as part of our Food Indaba annual food systems event programme. This unique experience unpacks the structures and spaces of the city through the lens of the food system and its history, and reveals how the current shapes and flows of the urban core determine the city’s relationship with food — and what the impacts are on public health — while sampling local street food favourites.