4.0 Coping Strategies and Resilience to Food Insecurity along the Urban-Rural Continuum of Morogoro and Iringa, Tanzania
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College of Business Education Journal
Abstract
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Food access insecurity is a worrying challenge worldwide with sub-Saharan Africa
including Tanzania being the most affected. Although factors that influence household
food access security and ways of coping with such factors have been examined, little has
been reported on how these coping strategies vary along the urban-rural continuum
especially in medium-sized towns. The study on which this manuscript is based assessed
whether food access insecurity strategies employed by households are similar along the
urban-rural continuum. In addition, the study assessed whether the above-mentioned
strategies contribute to building and improving households’ resilience to food access
insecurity. The study employed a cross-sectional research design whereby a sample of
279 households was drawn using a multi-stage sampling procedure. Primary data was the
key source of information for the study and was collected using a structured
70 questionnaire. Data were analysed mainly descriptively. Chi-square test (X
2 ) was performed to assess the relationship between each employed coping strategy and the spatial location of the household. Additionally, the Multi-layered social resilience
framework was employed to determine whether these strategies contribute to improving
household’s resilience to food access insecurity. Results show that the surveyed
households use a number of coping strategies, most of which vary significantly from one
spatial entity to another. Results also show that these strategies do not improve
households’ resilience to food access insecurity as they erode household’s own resilience.
Thus, it is concluded that food access insecurity coping strategies vary greatly among
households along the urban-rural continuum. In addition, the surveyed households
employ mainly reactive strategies, which may not be considered as proper in the realm of
resilience building. It is hereby recommended that poor households, particularly in those
rural areas be supported to diversify their incomes so as to be able to employ resilient
building strategies when they experience food shortages.
Keywords
Household food access insecurity, coping strategies, resilience, rural-urban