Tracing informality in food systems and sectors: what does informality mean for a unified One Food approach?

Abstract

This report therefore provides four key contributions to enhancing the understanding of informality in food systems. Firstly, it emphasises the pervasive role of institutional governance, illustrating its significance in influencing food systems and determining the inclusion or exclusion of marginalised participants. Second, it challenges the sidelining of institutional governance in the prevailing quantitative methods that emphasise measurement rather than the governance and socio-political factors influencing informality. Third, it introduces local open livelihood systems as a better conceptual framework for grasping food systems informality, highlighting their adaptability, community-based governance, and connection with formal value chains. Finally, it applies the local open livelihood systems perspective to show how food consumption mechanisms and channels are influenced to link to informal practices like fishing, intra-household consumption, street food consumption, and food waste exhibit interconnected pathways. The report is divided into five sections. The introduction is the first section and contextualises the report. Section 2 critically evaluates existing definitions of informality and their conceptual underpinnings. Section 3 offers a comprehensive and critical review of the conceptualisation and meanings of informality and offers a new conceptual understanding of informality in food value chains. Section 4 provides illustrative examples of informality within the food value chains. Section 5 concludes and provides recommendations that include potential future research on informality in food systems.