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RUAF Foundation

The RUAF Foundation is an international network of six regional resource centres and one global resource centre on Urban Agriculture and Food Security. In 1996 the international Support Group on Urban Agriculture (SGUA) took the initiative to set up a Resource Centre on Urban Agriculture and Food Security (RUAF), in response to the expressed need of organisations and local governments in the South for effective mechanisms for the documentation and exchange of research data and practical experiences on urban agriculture. In the following years RUAF gradually evolved into an international network of regional resource centres providing training, technical support and policy advice to local and national governments, producer organizations, NGO’s and other local stakeholders. In March 2005 the RUAF partners established the RUAF Foundation as their joint administrative body and liaison office. RUAF focuses its activities mainly in 20 cities, where RUAF closely cooperates with the local government, producer organisations, NGO’s, universities and private enterprises.

Mission

The mission of the RUAF Foundation is “to contribute to urban poverty reduction, employment generation and food security and to stimulate participatory city governance and improved urban environmental management, by creating enabling conditions for empowerment of male and female urban and peri-urban farmers, capacity development of local authorities and other stakeholders and by facilitating the integration of urban agriculture in gender-sensitive policies and action programmes of local governments, civic society organisations and private enterprises with active involvement of the urban farmers, livestock keepers and other relevant stakeholders”.