NEWS and growing small and medium enterprises , the journey to transforming the food industry will be long , particularly in the face of persisting informality . Across all of the continent ’ s regions , except southern Africa , informal employment as a percentage of total employment in the agricultural and non-agricultural sector is above the global average of 64 % for emerging and developing market economies .
More than 80 % of the continent ’ s population relies on open-air , largely informal markets for their food . Poor sanitary conditions in many of these markets raise concerns around food safety for households that depend on them .
If African countries are to ensure resilient and sustainable agri-food systems , they must upgrade food value chains by shifting production and employment from informal micro-enterprises to formal firms offering wage employment with income security and health benefits for employees . This will also ensure improvements in food safety within the system .
One example of this is an investment by the Rockefeller Foundation , in collaboration with the East African Grain Council , in Kenya ’ s Naivasha Smart Fish Market project . The aim is to provide an informal market with good quality infrastructure as a way of improving livelihoods and sanitary conditions .
GOVERNMENT RESPONSIBILITIES
There are three things that African governments can do to ensure that the reality of the next decade lives up to the global commitments made in 2021 .
Firstly , governments must provide adequate public goods . That means hard infrastructure , like roads , public works and electricity , and soft infrastructure like capacity development , finance , data and information .
Secondlt , they must effectively enforce national competition policy and anti-trust laws to level the playing field for all types of agrifood enterprises and minimise abuse of market power .
Finally , they must get out of the way . African governments should not over-regulate the sector : this increases the costs of doing business especially for small , medium and micro-enterprises . Policies must also be predictable and based on solid technical research .
* This article first appeared in The Conversation .
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