Good Food for Cities

AfriFOODlinks: Transforming Mbale's urban Food Environment

November 4, 2025

Mbale City is the fourth largest city and home to one of Uganda’s largest central markets. Like many growing cities, it faces challenges in managing large volumes of biodegradable waste, ensuring safe food in markets and abattoirs, and making nutritious meals more accessible for schoolchildren.

AfriFOODlinks is an EU-funded project coordinated by ICLEI Africa that connects over 65 cities across Africa and Europe to reimagine urban food systems.

Through this programme, Rikolto works alongside Mbale City Council, Global Consumer Center (CONSENT), Food Rights Alliance (FRA) and SHONA, to co-develop inclusive solutions that benefit market vendors, farmers, consumers, and children across the city.

In Mbale, this partnership focuses on three priorities: supporting circular solutions for managing and recycling market waste, strengthening food safety and infrastructure in the Central Market and City Abattoir, and promoting diverse and nutritious diets in schools.

Icon Place

Country

Uganda

Region

Mbale, Uganda.

Icon Scope

Scope

In Mbale, Rikolto and AfriFOODlinks partners are strengthening local food systems by training vendors and farmers, improving market infrastructure, and promoting food safety and organic practices. The project also supports nutritious school meals and local policy change for healthier diets.

Icon Duration

Duration

2022-2026

Challenges

  • According to the Mbale City Development Plan, about 500 tonnes of garbage are generated in the city each day, most of it biodegradable and originating from gardens, markets, restaurants, and a few supermarkets. The City Council collects around 70% of this waste, leaving communities to cope with the remainder. Without sufficient collection systems, unregulated dumping has become common, leading to waste piling up in public areas.
  • Food safety is another pressing concern. Mbale Central Market (MCM) is a hub for thousands of consumers and traders every day, with many people relying on ready-to-eat food for its affordability and accessibility. Yet conditions in some food courts and cooking areas make it difficult for vendors to meet public health standards. Enforcement of food safety regulations also remains limited, which affects both consumer health and cross-border food trade. Similarly, the Mbale City Abattoir, established in 1960, has not received major renovation for decades. Inadequate water supply, poor drainage, and deteriorating structures create risks for workers, traders, and consumers alike. Limited access to equipment and training makes it difficult for staff to consistently apply safe food handling practices. Over time, many traders and employees moved away from the facility, threatening the city’s meat supply.
  • In the context of school’s diets, there is a tendency for a monotone diet, consisting of posho (maize meal) and beans, which is a potential risk factor of malnutrition, especially micronutrient deficiencies (hidden hunger). These staple foods are perceived as economically affordable and are propelled by lack of diverse production at institutional level, even if there is available land in most of the cases. Other causes are economic challenges and limited awareness among school administration, teachers and parents on optimal nutrition, the importance of diet diversity and dietary preferences.

The work has improved hugely after Rikolto stepped in. Ever since we have been constructing the walls of the abatoire, the safety of the animals could be guaranteed. This increased the number of animals that have been brought for slaughtering.

Robert Nabushunu‍

Open World Contractors Ltd

‍

Our approach

An important aspect of Rikolto’s approach is to improve the urban food governance of the cities. In Mbale, Rikolto co-facilitates the Good Food Parliament and the Good Food Council, two multi-stakeholder platforms that bring local actors together to discuss Mbale’s food environment.

In this spaces, the participants raised concerns around poor waste management, infrastructure improvements, and food safety. These issues were tabled at City Executive meetings, prompting the following interventions:

Promoting circular economy and reducing organic waste in Mbale Central market

Concretely, this involves improving the collection of biodegradable waste and the infrastructure of the market.  Rikolto and its partners, Food Rights Alliance (FRA) and Global Consumer Center (CONSENT), were provided with safety gear, waste bins at different points in the market, and training for traders and waste sorters to identify, separate, and dispose of biodegradable waste effectively. These efforts are supported by the Mbale City Council, which contracts private entities to handle waste collection and transportation. In this arrangement, traders and hygiene teams at the market were trained on sorting biodegradable waste, which is then picked by biodegradable waste processors and taken to a processing site approved by Mbale Industrial Division for waste processing. Anhalt, together with Bamukwasi Rock Valley Fish Farm, a private company led by a young entrepreneur, process, package, and market the waste as organic manure, creating a sustainable alternative to synthetic fertilisers and encouraging organic urban farming.

The project also works with the City Council to improve cooking and vending sites, extend potable water access, and provide waste bins for safer collection and recycling.  Rikolto has co-invested in the expansion of the waste processing facility. This facility is applying innovative biodegradable waste recycling technologies, like the Black Soldier Fly (BSF) farming, to reduce the volume of waste from the main market and across the city.

Transforming Mbale central market and the city abattoir into centres for safe, nutritious and sustainable food for the city

  1. Rikolto is facilitating the mapping and profiling of vendors, conducting baseline assessments, providing protective gear such as aprons and head covers, and delivering tailored coaching on food safety, waste management, and recycling.
  2. To enhance the infrastructure and premises at the city abattoir and where cooked food is prepared and served. This will include:
  • Improved food stalls: Refurbishment of beef, fruit, and vegetable stalls in Mbale Central Market, with a target of 150 “smart stalls.”
  • Constructed a cooking shade: Construction of a cooking shade under the supervision of the City Engineer, offering food vendors a safer and more organised space.
  • Enhanced food courts: Renovation of two food courts in the market to provide a more attractive eating environment for consumers.
  • Renovated the City Abattoir: Renovation of the City Abattoir, including rebuilding the fence, did general renovations of the main structure and painted the facility.

Enhancing nutrient-dense diets in Mbale city schools, trough food ways and edible landscapes

Rikolto works with 10 pilot schools, 8 primary and 2 secondary within the city to promote more diverse, safe, and nutritious diets for children. These actions focus on:

  • To raise awareness and advocacy among the different schools’ stakeholders (parents, teachers, nutrition committees, school cooks and education, among others) on the importance of school feeding and diet diversity, and the role of optimal nutrition in child development and school performance.
  • Review school menus and promote the cultivation of crops at schools, with a focus on indigenous, nutrition dense and culturally acceptable fruits and vegetables, through  and agroecological school kitchen garden per class.
  • Capacity building of the schools to optimally collect and sort biodegradable waste. The eventual excess will be transported to the waste processing plant.
  • Creating vegetable gardens, and the formation of nutrition clubs per school. The members such as teachers will be trained to act as school food ambassadors, while parents will be encouraged to enrolment in midday meal programmes.
  • At the policy level, city leaders are involved in laying groundwork for stronger support to nutritious school feeding in the future.
No items found.

Results so far

Waste management and circular economy

  • Biodegradable waste is being sorted, collected, and transported to the waste processing facility for processing.
  • A private partner processes and sells organic manure to farmers.
  • The availability of organic manure is encouraging sustainable urban farming.

Food safety and vendor training

  • Baseline survey was completed with 150 selected vendors in the market.
  • Vendors and assistants received protective gear.
  • Training, mentoring, and coaching activities have begun.
  • Infrastructure improvements and water extensions are underway at selected vending sites.

Promoting school nutrition

After 11 months of collaboration, key milestones have been achieved in the 10 pilot schools:

  • Vegetable gardens and nutrition clubs were established.
  • Food safety and nutrition training sessions were delivered with support from Holland Green Technology.
  • Twenty teachers were trained as food ambassadors.
  • Garden tools and technical assistance were provided.
  • Parents enrolled more children in school meal programmes. We'll be able to measure our progress after we receive the results of an evaluation in 2025.
  • City leaders demonstrated greater commitment to supporting school food initiatives.
  • An interschool competition created opportunities for advocacy and peer learning.

Expected results

Looking ahead, Rikolto and AfriFOODlinks partners in Mbale aim to:

  • Expand capacity-building for traders, sorters, farmers, and food vendors. We targeted 150 vendors with AfriFOODlinks in the market and 70 in the city abattoir.
  • Strengthen community awareness on food safety, waste management, and organic farming.
  • Improve vending and food preparation sites through infrastructure and water access.
  • Scale up school nutrition interventions and influence local policy on nutritious school meals.
Dummy image

Explore the publication: How Multistakeholder Approaches are Transforming Food Systems in Mbale City

‍

Read more

Who do we work with?

FRA
FRA
Mbale Municipal Council
Mbale Municipal Council
Consent
Consent
Find out more about what we do on
Inclusive markets
Sustainable food landscapes
Find out more about what we do in
Uganda

Contact

Wilber Kakaire

Programme Coordinator - Good Food for Cities in Uganda

wilber.kakaire@rikolto.org

Stories from the ground

Discover more stories