Workshop on Agricultural market information systems in Africa: renewal and impact - Montpellier, from 29th to 31st March 2010.

1.  Objectives

Session plénière © Surbervie

Market information systems (MIS), in addition to their role for the monitoring of agricultural and food policies, are designed to improve market transparency, by disseminating information to producers, traders, processors, and consumers, in order to help them both with their decisions about marketing, production or investments. MIS are expected to generate improvements in:

i) market efficiency , more competitive trade and lower transaction costs leading to better resource allocation and;

ii) equity , reduced information asymmetries with middlemen and other buyers leading to better prices for the producers.

During the 80s’, MIS were introduced into many developing countries, for many types of products including cereals and tubers, fruits and vegetables, livestock, etc.. They were strongly promoted by donors and international organizations as tools to support the liberalization of agricultural markets. They multiplied so much in Africa, Asia and Latin America that FAO decided to draw up an inventory (Shepherd, 1997). All these first generation MIS had a similar configuration: i) each was focused on a country and a group of products (cereals, livestock, etc.); ii) information was almost exclusively about prices; iii) it was collected in a sample of markets covering the whole country before being centralized, selected, and then disseminated for free on a national scale, through radio or other media, and; v) the MIS were managed in a centralized way by government departments or projects, and mainly aid-funded.

During the 2000s, along with the new information and communication technologies (in particular Internet and mobile phones), a second generation of MIS emerged. Apart from the ITC aspect, the new MIS are characterized by their decentralized, interactive and sometimes private aspects.  Sometimes, they try to link up with other market institutions such as Warehouses Receipt Systems (WRS), commodity exchanges or multi-stakeholder round tables.

These second generation MIS are still badly known. The only major comparative study carried out on MIS (Shepherd 1997) took place prior to their existence; there have been very few impact studies. Nevertheless, the little information we have on them is enough to see their extreme diversity and the wide rage of innovations developped. Whereas the first generation MIS were all similar regardless of product and country, the new MIS innovate in very diverse ways and offer different king of services. Therefore, the first objective of the workshop is to present an o verview of agricultural MIS in Africa and to identify the main MIS models.  On this aspect, the workshop is on the continuity of the forum organized the CTA in November 2005, dealing with the issue of the second generation of MIS in developing countries[1].

First generation MIS faced several problems:

• to collect reliable data and disseminate it very quickly to market actors
• to adjust information supply to the need of market actors
• to secure the sustainability of the MIS (financing)
• to minimize exclusion

Do the different second generation MIS models propose solutions to these different (interconnected) problems? Answering to this question (through case studies) is the second objective of the workshop.

Besides, evaluations of MIS impact raise many methodological problems. The third objective of the workshop is to discuss the relevance of the different methods used to assess the impact of MIS .

2. Organization

The objective is to share and discuss the results of recent work on MIS. The workshop will be organized in three sessions:

• Session A: Overview of agricultural MIS in Africa and identification of the main MIS models. The results of our survey on 2nd generation MIS will be presented during Session A. 
• Session B : Technical and organisational innovations in MIS : strengths and limitations
• Session C : Impact of MIS : methodologies and results

The workshop will also give us the opportunity to share information on the different on-going research projects on MIS.

3. Scientific committee

Hélène David-Benz, Nango Dembélé, Johny Egg, Shaun Ferris, Franck Galtier, John Staatz, and Eric Tollens

4. Organisation committee 

Hélène David-Benz, Johny Egg, Franck Galtier Andrew Kizito, John Staatz, Julie Subervie and Idrissa Wade

[1] [1] CTA.  Expert consultation on market information systems and agricultural commodities exchanges : strenthening market signals and institutions. Amsterdam, 28-30 Novembre 2005.