Better nutrition for the poor through informal markets

This recent Policy Briefing, published by the Institute of Development Studies, UK, in February 2015, considers that policymakers are seeking to use markets to increase access to nutrient-rich foods in the fight against undernutrition. Poor people in rural and urban areas tend to buy food – including the foods most important for nutrition – not from large businesses, but from small enterprises and informal markets. To make a difference in these markets, development actors have to work differently. Country-level experiences provide a starting point for how policy actors can work with informal markets to provide affordable, nutrient-rich foods. To make significant progress, new programmes should be designed with a view to experimentation and learning. As shown in the Ghana case, informal markets have the potential for large-scale impacts when innovations are rapidly taken up by other enterprises. Yet new policy approaches require donors to invest for long-term impacts, to adapt in response to new information and to tolerate and learn from failures. Strengthening evidence and learning from other sectors are key priorities. Better data, innovative research and experimentation need to be the priorities for policymakers.