Making Markets Work to improve the consumption of nutritious and safe food


Making Markets Work (MMW) is a joint programme between GAIN and six leading development agencies which aims to catalyse the power of markets and the private sector to make nutritious and safe foods more available, affordable and desirable.

Poor diets are the leading cause of global ill health, yet collaboration between those with the power to reshape food offerings and make diets healthier is low. Food is delivered by business; health is the responsibility of governments. MMW starts from the basis that until we can find better ways to engage business to change food systems, global malnutrition will continue to rise. MMW charts new models, approaches and concepts to guide governments, investors and business to equip and shape markets to tackle malnutrition.

In MMW, our efforts are divided into six distinct but mutually reinforcing workstreams. The programme will develop and test effective ways to enable the increased consumption of nutritious and safe food across a variety of domains. With key partners we will: 

  • test new ways of increasing the demand for nutritious and foods; 
  • develop new tools to enable actors to better direct investments and action; 
  • identify key innovations which can improve the availability and affordability of nutritious and safe foods; 
  • improve the way that we understand, map and measure impact pathways of public-private engagements (PPEs) in nutrition; 
  • generate and mobilise knowledge on what works in PPEs in nutrition; and 
  • improve mechanisms which have the potential to improve business accountability in nutrition, both globally and at national level.