Marketing and domestic trade-related interventions
Interventions to facilitate the development of local marketing services in areas not well served by any form of communications infrastructure can be crucial in the development of medium-term household food security. In common with productivity-raising policies, such interventions are reviewed in a companion paper by the same author in this volume (Part 3), but it is important to stress these issues here, because of the common purpose of infrastructural investment and employment programmes. discussed below.
Without the provision of marketing infrastructure, trade-related activities will not take place. Such projects may range from skill formation through technical assistance and training for the promotion of private marketing institutions, to investment in the building and repair of roads and other forms of communication, including the subsidisation of private sector vehicles. Storage facilities may be considered the crucial constraint, hence projects may be designed to provide either direct capital investment where large-scale facilities are considered appropriate or, more probably, credit to augment household storage capacity.
