What's Next for the Enabling Environment for Agricultural Markets?

Markets matter for food security. And the formal and informal rules of the game — the enabling  environment — shape the makeup and performance of market systems. Achieving a food-secure future is an immense undertaking, but enabling environment interventions can help transform what’s possible. For example, reforms can strengthen the resilience of market systems to adapt to dramatic change, reducing uncertainty and the cost of transactions and thereby incentivizing entrepreneurship and private sector investment in agricultural sectors. Engaging these rules can shape markets toward improved food security outcomes.

Enabling environment for agricultural markets month began with a call to our partners and you, the Agrilinks community, to share learning from your experiences, successful approaches, and results and impacts yielded as part of your work to improve the enabling environment for agricultural market systems in support of the U.S. Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS) and beyond. You delivered. Your responses and contributions have been impressive and enlightening, serving to reinforce the cross-cutting role that this work plays in achieving food security goals.

Over the course of July, we have published over 29 posts showcasing learning across the enabling environment sphere, and more are still coming in. Over 18 different organizations have shared why the enabling environment matters and how they have worked to facilitate systemic change across markets. We have learned about incentivizing long-term investment across the private and public sectors and how we can create formal and informal rules and regulations that are more inclusive and responsive to the needs of stakeholders across agricultural markets and necessary for inclusive growth and improved food security.

We heard from USAID colleagues across the agency, including posts using political economy analysis to understand the enabling environment. We learned from organizations working with donors, such as Winrock and Fintrac. We also heard from Feed the Future’s implementing partners working with Missions, the Office of Market and Partnership Innovations, and others across USAID. We heard from private agribusiness and our partners that engage through and with the private sector, such as the Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation project.

We took a close look at country-specific examples such as Rwanda and regional ones such as sub-Saharan Africa’s response to fall armyworm. Topics have spanned seed policy, the enabling environment and scaling up a new technology, the business enabling environment change in market system development, standards for improved trade, and the enabling environment and climate-smart agriculture. Examples from across the Feed the Future portfolio and other partners were shared.

Though this month is wrapping up, please stay tuned for more opportunities to continue discussing and sharing on these important topics. We have more work to do and look forward to learning from your experience to replicate and scale these efforts.

On behalf of the Office of Market and Partnership Innovations and Agrilinks, thank you for joining us and for your important contributions! We invite you to continue sharing, engaging and learning to ensure these strategies continue to play a crucial role in achieving the GFSS goals. Stay tuned for final synthesis resources on the Feed the Future Enabling Environment for Food Security’s activity page and catch posts you might have missed in a forthcoming enabling environment collection here on Agrilinks.

We look forward to continuing the conversation!