Blended finance facility targeting urban food markets in Africa to reduce food waste, improve food security, safeguard vulnerable livelihoods, and reduce GHG emissions. The facility includes a grant/TA arm to support project prep. in municipal markets and a fund with a first-loss facility to provide debt to market owners, who will then build resiliency features and charge service fees to sellers.

Markets are the primary points of infrastructure on which urban food systems are built. There is a lack of suitable finance mechanisms for municipal markets (retail and wholesale). This gap is particularly acute for markets that support the most vulnerable consumers and retailers. Currently, market investments are funded through national grants, and maintained by local governments, or through multilateral development bank (MDB) loans utilizing public-private partnerships that are typically only available for large-scale projects.

These large-scale projects focus exclusively on greenfield developments and wholesale markets that favor integration with large supermarkets. Furthermore, current finance neglects investment into and favor of existing markets, as well as health and climate resilience factors in their criteria. The outcome has been a large funding gap for investing in resilient and inclusive urban food markets that leave urban food systems vulnerable to increasing shocks.

The Resilient Municipal Market Fund (ReMark) aims to unlock private investment in local urban food markets through donor support for (a) a technical assistance facility, (b) a first loss facility, and (c) debt funding for a portion of the total capex requirements. The instrument’s technical assistance arm will provide grant funding to municipalities to help with project preparation for their municipal markets. Municipal markets will be co-designed with market owners who own the project and can access funding from the loan facility.

By increasing sustainable practices used to distribute food in Africa’s urban centers, ReMark aims for the following climate impacts:

• Improved nutrition through increased resilience of urban food systems to climatic shocks.
• Reduced economic vulnerability of urban poor through safeguarding livelihoods.
• Avoided AFOLU emissions through reduced food loss and waste.
• Reduced GHG emissions from the conversion of family farms to large-scale industrial monocropping.
• Reduced transport-related emissions through the promotion of short supply chains.
• Avoided AFOLU emissions through reduced food loss and waste.
• Avoided emissions from diesel and coal electricity generation.
• Reduced methane and CO2 emissions from waste disposal sites.
• Sequestration of CO2 and other nutrients in local soils.