Sowing the Seeds of the 'Good City': Urban Agriculture, Sustainable Livelihoods and Wellbeing in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Clean water and food security are central to life in ‘the good city’. Yet in rapidly-expanding African cities, they remain unobtainable for many, and a barrier to the health and wellbeing of millions of people living in poverty.

Urban and peri-urban agriculture (UPA) has been one grassroots response for improving livelihoods, although it often takes place at sites highly contaminated by industrial wastewater and sewage.

Zoning in on Freetown, Sierra Leone this project will design, implement and test community-managed phytoremediation-based wetlands schemes at UPA sites, to treat toxic surface water and soil. It will monitor, measure and evaluate environmental, socio-economic and health impacts on UPA communities, before, during and after the implementation of wetland schemes.

Working closely with UPA communities to ensure co-production of knowledge, this interdisciplinary research partnership will generate important new policy-relevant knowledge on the potential of UPA to address some of the greatest urban challenges today.

Principal Investigator: Professor Roy Maconachie, University of Bath