Nina Bellini Motovska

The aim of this study is to disclose the social factors of sustainable development goals by exploring the links between three types of social capital (bonding, bridging and linking) and food security in Kibera, an informal settlement located in Nairobi, Kenya. Several studies in the literature have addressed links between food security and social capital. However, a lack of theoretical approaches exist in the literature, which concern the sustainable development theory devoted to urban areas taking into account the sustainable development goals. This study applies a linear regression model on data from 385 households in Kibera to analyze the connection between food security and three types of social capital (bonding, bridging and linking). The results demonstrate that there is a positive impact between our proxies for bonding social capital (cultural diversity and the number of visits to area of origin) and food security. Bridging social capital (measured by trust in strangers) demonstrated a negative impact on food security. Finally, one indicator for linking social capital demonstrated a positive impact on food security (trust in community leaders), whereas the statistical analyses did not find any relationship of the two indicators; ‘trust in local politicians’ and ‘membership of social organisations’, with food security. The results demonstrate that insight into social capital can inform the understanding of household food insecurity in vulnerable urban settlements, by illustrating the critical impacts of social drivers in a food system.