USAID Ghana: Market systems and Resilience

J.E. Austin Associates (JAA), since 2025 part of Civitta, served as subcontractor to ACDI/VOCA on the USAID-funded Ghana Market Systems and Resilience (MSR) Activity, focused on northern Ghana. Contract value: $1,889,274. Our team led work on policy and the enabling environment, aiming to create a more functional market system through improved government-market actor cooperation and stronger policy implementation.

• Weak enabling environment for local market actors across northern Ghana
• Limited commercialization and profitability of agriculture markets
• Low institutional capacity of market actors
• Poor market access and quality of business services
• Lack of information on markets and standards and buyer requirements

The team employed a demand-driven and evidence-based facilitative approach, structured around three main workstreams:

• Policy Landscape and Political Economy Analysis (PLPEA)

In the initial phase, we conducted a comprehensive PLPEA to establish a baseline understanding of the enabling environment in northern Ghana. This included desk research, nearly 50 key informant interviews with actors across the ZOI and at national level, and stakeholder workshops. The PLPEA identified key market actors and their motivations and incentives related to policies, articulated the processes of policy formulation and implementation relevant to MSR, and produced a series of actionable recommendations for the project going forward.

• Policy Development and Implementation Methodology (PDIM) 

Our experts applied PDIM, JAA’s proprietary methodology, to facilitate a demand-driven process that identifies local policy priorities for policy and regulatory reforms. PDIM co-develops evidence-based plans with local partner universities, think tanks, and research institutes. It is also applied to facilitate frequent government and private sector coordination while developing and implementing policy reforms in districts and communities throughout the ZOI. MSR ensured the involvement of women and youth in improving this enabling environment.

• Policy and enabling environment interventions

Informed by the PLPEA and applying PDIM, our team worked with local counterparts to achieve a number of improvements in the policy and enabling environment, including:

– Improved compliance with food safety standards throughout value chains by training and consulting agribusinesses in collaboration with the government Food and Drug Administration and Standards Authority. Processors in several value chains were also provided with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) training to improve their understanding of food safety practices and good manufacturing principles 

– Diagnosed barriers to use of e-government applications and provided recommendations and plans for government and private sector to collaborate to increase and improve agribusinesses’ use of the applications

– Improved compliance with weights and measures policies by training agribusinesses and market participants

– Helped implement National Seed Policy, a major reform in Ghana, by providing training and organizing and facilitating public private dialogue

– Training for shea processors on ECOCERT Organic Certification was executed through a training of trainers program, which provided training on processing, storing, and processing according to ECOCERT standards

– As part of the project’s effort to strengthen agriculture governance decentralization, our team helped reestablish District Value Chain Committees (DVCCs) to guide reforms in each district and address issues that farmers and agribusinesses have in the enabling environment reforms that impact their competitiveness and growth in particular value chains

• Training and technical assistance to DVCCs, associations, agribusinesses, and government institutions increased institutional capacity of market actors and led to better policy implementation
• Our team trained 259 MSMEs that process groundnuts, soybeans, shea, and moringa into various food items on nationally established standards for processing food for public consumption. The training increased their access to local and international markets
• We conducted training of trainers for 33 Shea Processors on ECOCERT Organic Certification, and these trainers provided training for over 1,000 participants in the shea value chain, providing certification that leads to higher incomes  
• Our holistic approach to business environment reform improved the enabling environment for local market actors and led to increase export and domestic sales

Salome Wononuo Kpieta, a maize and soybean processor in Tamale, said after the food safety training, “I have been unaware that even the type of soaps I use to wash and clean my processing equipment could lead to chemical contamination. Thanks to this training, I have increased my appreciation of proper and safe manufacturing practices that will improve the safety of my product.”

1. A successful reform effort requires full understanding of the policy environment: Carrying out a holistic analysis of the policy environment includes review of policies and the state of implementation, understanding of the responsible government institutions, analysis of barriers to implementation and their root causes, and political economy analysis.

2. Reforms should be market led: Not all reforms can be completed simultaneously, and prioritization is necessary. Consultants and their government partners should prioritize reforms that are needed to unlock market access or that sellers and buyers demand. 

3. Implementing digital solutions includes educating and consulting with users: e-Government solutions are critical for market efficiency but even where they are well-structured users may not know how to use them. An education and outreach program can provide users with the knowledge they need to use these digital solutions; the program can include soliciting feedback from users to identify any solvable barriers to use. 

4. Working at the grass roots level helps ensure that policy reforms are properly implemented: Business environment reforms usually aim to help businesses throughout a country increase their competitiveness and operate efficiently. Working locally with businesses – especially small businesses with growth potential – maximizes the chances of a reform achieving its objectives.