Mapping the Market: Market-Literacy for Agricultural Research and Policy to Tackle Rural Poverty in Africa

This paper discusses the market map, framework for representing, analyzing and planning interventions in market for injecting market literacy.

The paper argues that technological change and trade reform are not sufficient to generate poverty reducing growth in agriculture. It suggests that injection of market literacy is necessary to realize pro-poor benefits.

The paper presents the three-tiered framework of market map consisting of:

• Market chain actors including:
  • Primary producer to final consumers;
  • Small holders to large scale producers.
• Enabling environment including a wide range of factors, distinguishing those that relate to:
  • Market demand;
  • Transformation activities;
  • Transactions activities.
• Service providers concerned with mapping of services that support, or could potentially support, the overall efficiency of the market chains. The range of services include:
  • Market services;
  • Financial services.

The paper then explores the operational challenges in using the framework and draws initial lessons by giving examples where the framework has already been used. It presents the challenges that include:

• Developing the capacity of the project team to do the analysis;
• Building the trust of the local stakeholders.

The paper concludes with a discussion on the implications for policy makers for adopting market literacy concept at three levels:

• Micro level: The strategies of economic actors in the market chain;
• Meso level: The strategies of agricultural research institutions, government rural development agencies;
• Macro level: The strategies of multinational agencies and national ministries.