Making Markets Work for food systems transformation

Making Markets Work aims to strengthen and support the implementation of 10 country food systems pathways in Bangladesh Benin Ethiopia Indonesia India Kenya Mozambique Nigeria Pakistan and Tanzania. It seeks to accelerate improvements in the consumption of safe nutritious and sustainably produced food for all especially the most vulnerable. The project also seeks to inspire and guide other countries and stakeholders in developing and implementing pathways. The project seeks to achieve these goals by supporting six interlinked work streams that address policy and bottlenecks within the countries' food systems. The ultimate goal is to improve the nutritional status of the poorest and most vulnerable focusing on women. Project activities include: (1) supporting governments in strengthening policy alignment in development and implementation across sectors towards food system goals; (2) involving unheard voices in the food system pathway development and implementation process to strengthen both the decisions and the buy-in for decisions made; (3) supporting low-income consumers accessing markets within their food systems; (4) aligning and increasing private sector finance for food system transformation; (5) connecting nutrition and environment agendas within food systems pathways; and (6) generating new evidence and data for stronger learning and accountability on food systems transformation.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) implemented food systems policies improving alignment with gender equity sustainability and healthy diets; (2) strengthened empowerment and inclusion of women's and youth voices in formal policy decision-making processes; (3) increased access to nutritious foods for vulnerable groups (especially women and girls) through markets and social protection programs; (4) improved pipeline of publicly-available gender-equitable small and medium enterprise investible propositions; (5) increased private sector investment in food system transformation to maximize the environmental nutrition impact while improving gender equality; and (6) increased use of better and gender-disaggregated data to inform and improve food system decisions.