As a FAO-ESN team, we would like to contribute to the report with a reference to our first-hand data collection on 60 territorial markets in 8 countries, carried out over the past year. The initiative was done using FAO methodology for mapping of territorial markets, which was developed as a direct response to 2016 CFS policy recommendations "Connecting Smallholders to Markets", referring to the need to collect comprehensive data on formal and informal markets, rural and urban and linked to local, national and regional food systems.
The initiative produced a valuable set of data on both retailers and consumers who attend these local, territorial markets, and the data can be disaggregated by gender, age, different food groups (and more). Gender inclusion is a key aspect in the methodology, because it also offers an interpretive tool - a synthetic indicator on Gender Inclusion. This indicator measures how inclusive a market is to women compared to men, by taking into consideration the gender income gap of the market retailers, and the gap between men and women retailers who do not have access to financial services.
The whole methodology is designed to inform policy-making processes that seek strategic entry points in the food systems for improving local diets and nutrition. We strongly believe that territorial markets represent this crucial entry point for working on the systemic change for increasing availability, access and desirability of healthy and diversified foods for low-income consumers.
In the attachment we are sharing a draft of a thematic brief titled “Territorial markets for women’s economic inclusion” (to be published soon by FAO) with gender-focused data analysis from the mapped markets in 3 countries. We do have more gender-specific data and can develop a more elaborative report if you consider this initiative as a valuable reference for the report.
Ana Puhac