Working with Informality

The informal sector is the biggest private sector in many African and Asian countries. Informal market actors are of key importance in the provision of food, especially for low income consumers. Interventions that aim for formalisation may have legitimate concerns with labour conditions, tax evasion or food safety. However, these interventions also risk to increase food prices and reduce access to food for the poorest consumers.

Conventional thinking is not grasping the real-world of the informal economy

A growing community of development professionals aims to deepen analysis and explore how to work with informal actors in the pursuit of enhanced food system outcomes. You can listen to some of their experiences in this recording.

Earlier events on this topic (2022-2024) focused on analysis and are listed below. In 2025, NFP and partners reconsidered the goal of this partnership,. The focus is establishing an informed dialogue between different viewpoints on informality. For this purpose, a serious game called Food for All was designed by Kucheza Gaming Studio. An earlier prototype was tested at AFS Forum in Dakar and NFP's World Food Day. Two educational game designers from the Netherlands helped us with a next version, which we expect to launch in May 2026.