Lockdown, resilience and emergency statecraft in the Cape Town food system

Well before the Covid-19 pandemic, rapidly growing cities of the global South were at the epicenter of multiple converging crises affecting food systems. Globally, government lockdown responses to the disease triggered shocks which cascaded unevenly through urban food systems, exacerbating food insecurity. Cities worldwide developed strategies to mitigate shocks, but research on statecraft enabling food systems resilience is sparse. Addressing this gap, we analyse the case of the African metropolis of Cape Town, where lockdown disrupted livelihoods, mobility and food provision, deepening food insecurity. Employing a vital systems security lens, we show how civil society and state networks mobilised to mitigate and adapt to lockdown impacts. Building on preceding institutional transformations, civil society and state collaborated to deliver emergency food aid, while advocacy networks raised food on the political agenda, formulated proposals, and navigated these through a widened policy window. Emergency statecraft assembled networks and regulatory instruments to secure food systems, enhance preparedness for future disruptions and present opportunities for transition towards more sustainable food systems. However, current food systems configuration enabled powerful actors to resist deeper transformation while devolving impacts to community networks. Despite resilient vested interests and power disparities, advocacy coalitions can anticipate and leverage crises to incrementally advance transformational, pro-poor statecraft.