At a big stage in Milan in October, in the presence of people from across the globe working on sustainable urban food systems, the city of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso was the only African city to take an award home. The recognition was under the category “Food Supply & Distribution”. This article takes a closer look at how two modest, but innovative market upgrades rose to international visibility.
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During the 10th World Forum of the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact in Milan, the city received an award for two pilot projects, the introduction of mobile counters for street food vendors at the Rood–Woko market, and upgraded stalls designed for women vegetable vendors at the Nabii Yaar market.
Supported by Rikolto and local partners and funded by the AfriFOODLinks programme coordinated by ICLEI Africa with funding from the European Union, the pilots are part of a wider municipal effort to transform how food is sold, handled and accessed in a city where the majority of residents still rely on local or traditional food markets.
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“I thank everyone who helped us to receive this award. It honours the city of Ouagadougou because it is the only African city among so many other cities to have received an award”.
Like many rapidly growing African cities, Ouagadougou faces major challenges in its food system, including issues around the safety and quality of food products. With most residents buying their food in local markets and yaars, there is a lack of adequate infrastructure to serve as food stalls; this has a negative impact on the hygiene of fruit and vegetables and promotes losses. These shortcomings lead to a drop in revenue for sellers, an increase in waste, and greenhouse gas emissions.
To address these challenges in a practical, inclusive way, the city and its partners began a structured improvement process through the AfriFOODlinks programme.
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The work began in 2024, when the team carried out a literature review and food system assessment to understand the existing laws, programmes, and challenges affecting the city food system.
After this, the municipality and project partners organised consultations and market diagnosis sessions. Vendors, municipal staff, researchers and civil society organisations walked through different markets together to identify hygiene problems, missing equipment, and the main sources of food loss.
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Their findings were brought to a Multistakeholder Platform (a forum where vendors, farmers, organisations and the city make decisions together), which helped everyone agree on the priorities to address.
The process was coordinated by the Urban Economic Development Agency (ADEU), the municipal agency that manages the city’s markets, with support from Rikolto.
Rikolto’s role was to bring partners together, organise the participatory assessments, and provide technical guidance, while ensuring the municipality and local organisations remained in the lead. Partners such as INTA/IRSAT (a national research centre for food and technology), ACRA and ABNORM (the national agency for standards and quality), contributed their expertise on food safety and market standards. Importantly, Vocational Technical Training Centres and Agri-Food Value Chain Associations were also involved in this phase. They participated in the consultations and shared practical insights on training needs, food handling practices, and the daily realities of vendors, helping to ensure that the market improvements responded to real on-the-ground conditions.
Following the diagnosis, the project moved into training and sensitisation activities, helping street food vendors improve food quality and adopt safer practices.
In 2025, based on the priorities identified in 2024, the municipality tested two pilots in the fresh produce markets. These practices included the new mobile counters for street food vendors at Rood–Woko and improved vegetable stalls at Nabii Yaar. In a very short time the upgrades proved to strengthen the links with local farmers in the Green Belt (the area around the city where many local farmers grow vegetables), making it easier to supply fresh products to urban consumers.
The city monitored progress through regular visits and feedback from vendors and customers. Lessons from this initiative will inform Ouagadougou’s Territorial Food Plan.
At the Milan event, the Commune of Ouagadougou and its partners, Rikolto, ACRA and Mani Tese signed a Memorandum of Understanding to support the city’s territorial Food Plan. The ceremony brought together AfriFOODlinks partners, officials from the City Hall and representatives from the markets and yaars (small neighbourhood markets where people buy everyday food) across the city.
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"This award to the municipality is a step, but the path towards sustainable food governance has only just begun. It will already continue with the development of the territorial food plan for greater Ouagadougou. Let's continue to build resilient and nourishing cities together!" Bernadette Ouattara - Regional Director of the Good Food for Cities Programme at Rikolto.
The upgraded facilities, entrusted to two – one hundred (200) young vendors and women selling food products from the two markets and yaars are for the benefit of about 20,000 consumers.
A sustainability and retention plan has been designed to promote the long term viability of the pilots.
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