1. Local Governance to Improve Access
to Healthy Food
Dr. Danielle Resnick, Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI | November 30, 2018, Bangkok

2. Why and how are local governments
relevant?
 Political, fiscal, and/or administrative decentralization
pursued in over 80 percent of all countries(Scott and Rao 2011)
 “Local authorities form a vital bridge between national
governments, communities and citizens and will have a
critical role in a new global partnership”(UN 2013)
o SDG 11 has fostered the importance of “inclusive cities”
o Cities at forefront of many global initiatives
 Local governments can enable healthy food access
through multiple channels:
o Agricultural production
o Food trade in informal markets
o Food safety
Source: Carbon Disclosure Project, www.cdproject.net
Source: C40 cities, www.c40.org

3. Agricultural Production
 Issue: Devolution of agriculture functions to local
government increasingly common (Ghana, Kenya, Nepal,
Pakistan, Zambia, etc.)
 Enabling Role: Creating incentives to improve agricultural
productivity, especially of nutritious foods
 Challenges: Politician-bureaucrat conflicts, insufficient
money and staff for agricultural extension, multiple tax rates
across value chains
 Options: Ensure produce taxes (cess) do not substantially
deviate across space, entice quality staff to remote areas
with incentives, reduce frequency of rotating extension
officers
Crop/value chain Kenya Tanzania
Maize Ksh 583/ton Tsh 5,000-18,000/ton
Sugarcane 4% 5%
Tea 1% of hammer price 3%
Coffee 4% 5%
Cotton Ksh.286.5/ton 5%
Horticulture 1% of turnover 3-5% of farm-gate
price
Snapshot of local produce cess levels in Kenya & Tanzania
Source: Nyange et al. (2014)
Extension staff still skewed to urban areas after devolution
in Ghana
Source: Resnick (2018)

4. Informal/wet market trade
 Issue:
o Control over markets often a local government responsibility
o Major source of food access for poor & revenue for urban governments
(e.g. 10% of Accra’s revenue in 2017)
 Enabling role: ensure services in markets and security from extortion,
theft, fires, and flooding
 Challenges: low capacity, opacity in taxation, and erratic harassment
 Options: mobile tax payments, earmarking of taxes for specific services
Source: www.pri.org
Fire at City Market, Lusaka
Makola Market, Accra
Source: Zambian Observer
Source: Joy News Ghana
Crackdown on Traders, Accra
Source: Zambian Observer

5. Food safety
 Issue:
o Food safety hazards undermine nutrient absorption
through illness
o Very common in informal and wet markets (Roessel and Grace 2015)
 Enabling role: Providing regulatory oversight and enforcement
through hygiene training, food licensing, etc.
 Challenges: Multiplicity of mandates across government
entities, confusion over accountability among food vendors, low
capacity to enforce
 Options: Streamline responsibilities, identify “market leaders”
to help monitor sanitation guidelines, develop scorecards to
identify worst-affected locations to target enforcement
Complexity of Subnational Food Safety
Governance, Nigeria
Tamale Central Market, Ghana
Source: Resnick et al. 2018
Photo: Karl Pauw, IFPRI

6. Conclusions
 Local governments are pivotal partners for increasing access to healthy food
o But their capacities to do so vary across metropolitan areas, peri-urban communities, secondary
towns, and villages
 The importance of involving local governments is not always easily accepted
o Cities can be sites of political opposition
o “Recentralization by stealth” observed in recent years by national governments
 However, local governments are best-placed to pursue territorial rather than sectoral-based
strategies to improve healthy food systems
o e.g. Johannesburg’s Food Resilient Unit and Food Empowerment Zones
 Proximity to citizens enables them to foster a culture of “shared governance” through Town
Hall meetings and deliberative communication on food-related public priorities