1 This paper is based on data and information that has been updated and revised since 1994. Most of the data provided pre-date the devaluation in the Franc Zone in West Africa. However, more recent studies suggest that data on operating costs in marketplaces have remained substantially the same.
2 IRAT/CIRAD teams have carried out various studies and research projects on vegetables pipelines in Africa and Madagascar. See for example the studies directed by P. Moustier on these systems in Brazzaville.
3 The large-scale cereal wholesalers in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger at the head of major trade networks handling between 3 000 and 5 000 tonnes per year, never operate in marketplaces.
4 The concentration of wholesalers in certain districts of a city may have historical origins, and be connected with pipelines for certain very specific products. In these cases, such concentrations of wholesalers are rarely found near the central market, since their sphere of activity has always been primarily interregional or international, and only secondarily local.
5 Onforwarding refers to redistribution of produce to other major cities either within the country or abroad. Sales to wholesalers from suburban districts or surrounding rural areas are not included here.
6 Wholesale markets are places where supply and demand are concentrated, and where prices are formed in the most transparent conditions. They encourage the necessary division of functions between wholesalers and retailers. They also facilitate the geographical concentration of supply functions, which is beneficial in terms of urban development and necessary for the existence of a minimal level of market facilities (Gergely, 1996; cf. Tollens, 1997).
7 The principle of unified tax accounts is a legacy of French rule in French-speaking Africa and has generally been distorted, particularly following the crisis in public finance. Transfer of resources from central government is no longer guaranteed and there are occasions when the state appropriates funds mobilized by local authorities. Even though transfers to local authorities constitute a relatively minor element in public finances, its withdrawal has had major repercussions for most local administrations (World Bank, 1996). This situation encourages local administrations to create informal funding arrangements, withholding internally generated funds (including markets receipts) from central revenue authorities. The result is increased lack of transparency and financial accountability.
8 In most systems, direct local taxes form the basis of the local administration’s financial autonomy. These are received essentially as licence fees (affecting workers) and land taxes (affecting both workers and households).
9 Certain issues have periodically aroused Treichville market women to put pressure on municipal authorities. One perennial issue is the desire to exclude non-Ivoirian women “who take our places in the market’” (Lewis, 1976). In Accra the stallholders are the most powerful group of market women in terms of their influence on prices and their control over who is allowed to trade in the market (Robertson, 1976).
10 Applications for stalls are usually handled by
the manager of the Lome Central Market. In some cases, traders’
associations that mutually support their members succeed in limiting the unfair
exercise of the discretionary powers of the manager. In these cases, colleagues
take over trading for a member who is away and look after her stall. They are
also informed when she leaves the market for good (Cordonnier, 1987).
