About

The RUAF Foundation is a global network with member organisations in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe together constituting a leading centre of expertise in the field of (intra- and peri-) Urban Agriculture and City Region Food Strategies. The following organisations are currently part of the RUAF Foundation: the International Water Management Institute, The Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and ETC Foundation​.

RUAF is a not-for-profit organisation registered in the Netherlands and in operation since 1999 that seeks to contribute to the development of sustainable cities by facilitating awareness raising, knowledge generation and dissemination, capacity development, policy design, and action planning regarding resilient and equitable urban food systems. Find here the Dutch registration and Statutes.

The RUAF Foundation promotes (intra- and peri-) urban agriculture and city region food systems for more sustainable and resilient cities.Since1999, RUAF is supporting local governments, urban producer organisations, NGOs, CBOs, research centres and other stakeholders with training, technical assistance, action-research, policy lobby, advocacy and design in the field of urban agriculture and urban food strategies. RUAF is publishing the Urban Agriculture Magazine, books, technical and methodological guidelines and working papers on urban agriculture and city region food systems reaching about 800.000 readers globally today. In addition, we support local, national and international advocacy and learning activities.

Mission

The RUAF Foundation seeks to contribute to reducing urban poverty, enhancing urban food security, improving urban environmental management and stimulating participatory city governance. RUAF contributes by enhancing the capacities of local authorities and other stakeholders and facilitating the integration of (intra- and peri-) urban agriculture and city-region food measures in the policies and action programmes of local, regional and national governments, civic society organisations and private enterprises, with active involvement of the urban producers and other relevant stakeholders.

Nature of the RUAF network

The RUAF Foundation is an international network in which optimum use is made of the relative strength of each of its member organisations. The RUAF network is oriented towards the delivery of practical and high-quality results, applying a demand-driven and participatory approach while remaining flexible and providing room for change and innovation. The RUAF research and development projects, as well as its training and advisory activities,are undertaken in response to the support needs expressed by our local partners (local and regional authorities, NGOs, universities, urban producer groups, private enterprises and other stakeholders). RUAF applies a participatory approach to project planning and implementation. Project process and results are regularly reviewed together with the local partners to improve the impact and sustainability of the projects and to enhance the partners’ self-learning capacity.

Experiences gained in certain types of activities are shared among the partners in the RUAF network, systematised, and published as RUAF working papers, policy briefs, guidelines, training manuals, and so on and disseminated to various types of users, through the RUAF website, the Urban Agriculture Magazine, and the publication of books and working papers