Overview: Social assistance programmes in Saint Lucia benefit from a large network of cash-based transfer delivery and supply chain actors. These include food suppliers and retailers, as well as financial service providers, some of which provide services for transferring cash to beneficiaries of the Public Assistance Programme, the food vouchers for the PLHIV program, and food for the school feeding programme. Disaster risk management actors also leverage national supply chains to provide food, non-food items and services to households in the aftermath of shocks to respond to their basic needs.

As part of WFP’s support to the Saint Lucia Government towards enhancing shock responsive and adaptive social protection within the framework of the Joint Programme Enhancing Resilience and Acceleration of the SDGs in the Eastern Caribbean, effective and resilient supply chains and delivery mechanisms are key components to ensure an agile response system and quality interventions to targeted households benefiting from cash or voucher transfers.

Background and Justification. Market inefficiencies can drive customers to experience low/unpredictable availability of food, high prices, and/or poor food quality, which negatively impacts food security.  Market analysis tools aim to understand the functioning of markets, monitor their behaviour, and understand their components and actors, design and implement activities to improve their resilience and programme delivery efficiency. These tools can complement programme design by identifying risks associated with the delivery of the assistance, challenges faced by recipients when using it, and improving the efficiency of supply chains which can impact the beneficiaries of Social Protection programmes and other members of the communities using those markets.

WFP offers two complementary tools to monitor market functioning and uncovering its inefficiencies: The Market Functionality Index and the Market System Analysis. These tools include an end-to-end supply chain assessment of key national and local food and non-food supply chain players to improve shock responsive social protection delivery. While both tools are presented below, a work plan to conduct an MFI is presented. The results of the MFI will inform the need to carry on further assessments (MSA).

Objective. To obtain information regarding the functionality of markets, to identify entry points for interventions, to support value chain actors to increase the efficiency and resilience of markets, and ensure that beneficiaries of cash transfer programs have regular and predictable access to food and essential needs.

Scope. The MFI will be conducted initially, and depending on the results and needs, an MSA might be carried out.

Methodology. 

Market Functionality Index. The Market Functionality Index (MFI) is a quantitative measure designed by WFP, which can be adapted for joint assessment with Governments, to benchmark market functionality for the following nine dimensions: 1) assortment of essential goods, 2) availability, 3) price, 4) resilience of supply chains, 5) competition, 6) infrastructure, 7) services, 8) food quality, and 9) access and protection. 

The MFI tool provides simple steps for conducting a market assessment including the questionnaires and other tools for data management and data analysis