Danielle Resnick SPECIAL EVENT Urban Food Systems for Better Diets, Nutrition, and Health MAY 17, 2019 - 12:15 PM TO 01:45 PM EDT

1. Governance of Urban Informal
Food Trade
Danielle Resnick
Washington, DC | May 17, 2019

2. Benefits of informal food trade
Food security
Predominant source of food access for
urban poor
Employment
Key for older women and
young men
Food system linkages
Tap into domestic and global
value chains
Revenue mobilization
Essential for local government
tax revenue

3. Challenges of, and for, informal food trade
Food safety
High bacterial contamination in ready-to-eat
food in LMICs
Decent employment
Lack of social protection,
dire working conditions
Diet quality
High levels of salt, sugar, and oil in
prepared foods
Political pawns
Vote banks, source of bribes
and violence

4. Our Research on Governance of Urban Informal Food Trade
▪ Institutional architecture for oversight
oWho is accountable at what level (metro, city, market levels)?
▪ Taxation and the social contract
oWhat services do traders receive for the fees they pay?
▪ Food safety regulation
oWhat are the levels of capacity and coordination for enforcement?
▪ Right to public space
oWhen and why are some traders harassed and others not?

5. Insights from Ghanaian Cities

6. Complex Institutional Architecture for Informal Food Trade
Source:
Fieldwork interviews, Accra, Kumasi,
Tamale, March 2018

7. Taxation and Service Delivery
▪ Informal does not mean untaxed
o Business operating permit (BOP)
o Shop/stall rental fees or daily “ticket”
o Toilet use, storage, waste collection
o Quarterly tax to GRA
▪ Female, stall owner in Tamale pays
o 100 GHS a year for BOP
o 50 GHS a month for rental
o Security man
o Market sweeper
“When the rainy season comes, the
toilets overflow and feces stream down
the alleyways. Why are they taking our
money but we are not seeing anything?”
Primary benefit from paying Assembly taxes (%)
Source: IFPRI-CDD Ghana Informal Food Traders Survey
N = 907 who pay taxes to Assembly
82
7.5 5.4 3.1 1.5 0.4
Nothing Secure
trading spot
Sweeping
and waste
collection
License to
trade
Protection of
goods from
confiscation
Protection
from
violence
Taxes on goods and services in city revenue
Source: Composite Budgets, Ministry of Finance, 2017
41.3
65.1
37.6
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
70.0
0
5,000,000
10,000,000
15,000,000
20,000,000
25,000,000
Accra Kumasi Tamale
Shareoftotalcityrevenue
Revenuefromtaxesongoods
andservices(GHS)

8. Food Safety Regulation
▪ Traders required to undergo annual health exam and
pay for food handler certificate but erratic enforcement
▪ Environmental health officers regulate counterfeit,
expired, and damaged merchandise
o Often rely on consumer reports due to large number of
vendors
▪ Food safety enforcement financed from own sourced
revenue, explaining inter-city disparities
▪ Waste collection decentralized, resulting in unequal
collection across markets
Confiscated items from food
vendors, Kumasi
15.5
74.7
9.8
Yes No Don't know
Do you need a special permit or
license for selling food items? (%)
Source: IFPRI-CDD Ghana Informal Food Traders Survey
N = 1,214 sampled food traders

9. Rights to Public Space
▪ Cities create “decongestion” bye-laws
o Task Force and Metro Guards patrol daily in CBDs
o Operation Red Line in Accra
▪ Forced removals when malls or new markets built
o Rental fees in private upgraded markets too high
o New markets too far from customers
o Poorest traders pushed back on streets
▪ Found harassment highest in Kumasi
o “KMA should stop seizing our goods because that is what we
are using to take care of our kids” (Male, 45-54)
o “My things were thrown away like some rubbish by the
[Kumasi] task force” (Male, 18-24)
Half-empty new Racecourse
Market, Kumasi (2018)
Operation Red Line in Accra

10. Going Forward
▪ Governance perspective allows for points of entry into policy process
o Identify accountability for decisions about regulations, taxation, and services
o Highlight policy inconsistencies
o Consider limits on capacity to implement and how to mitigate
▪ Expand comparative analysis
o Cross-city analyses in the same country useful to reduce capital city bias
o Mixed methods uncover both policymakers’ and traders’ perspectives
▪ Consider options to enhance benefits, minimize challenges of traders
o Earmarking revenue for re-investment in markets
o Scorecards of food safety hazards
o Consolidation of responsibilities by local government departments