Jane Battersby

Cape Town

Jane Battersby is a senior researcher at the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town, South Africa and is the research coordinator of the ESRC/DFID-funded Consuming Urban Poverty Project, which focuses on governing food systems to alleviate poverty in secondary cities in Africa. Jane’s research for the last 10 years has focused on urban food security and urban food systems in Africa, mainly through the African Food Security Urban Network (AFSUN), the Hungry Cities Partnership and the Consuming Urban Poverty project. Her work seeks to interrogate the construction of food security theory in Northern and Southern research context. It also seeks to examine the drivers of urban development and change in African cities through the lens of food. She has also worked in an advisory capacity to local, provincial and national government on food security issues.