The just concluded Market Information Systems (MIS) and Regional Food Balance Sheet (RFBS) Forum was held in Arusha, Tanzania, on 20–21 August 2025, convened by the COMESA–EAC Horticulture Accelerator (CEHA) in partnership with the East African Community (EAC).
The meeting brought together government agencies, regional economic communities, farmer organizations, commodity alliances, private sector players, and development partners. Its focus was on advancing digitization, harmonization, and integration of MIS platforms and linking them with the RFBS to strengthen food and horticulture value chains across the region.
MIS are digital platforms that collect, validate, and disseminate near-real-time data on prices, volumes, market locations, logistics, and trade flows, giving farmers, traders, processors, and policymakers reliable information for decision-making.
On the other hand, the RFBS, developed by COMESA with support from AGRA, FCDO, MCF and the Gates Foundation, aggregates data on production, stocks, consumption, and trade to estimate food surpluses and deficits across countries. Since its MVP launch in 2022, the RFBS has been upgraded and is now in Phase II, which includes the development of a mobile application to expand access and enable contributions from field actors.
These tools are important because they reduce information gaps, enable faster and better policy decisions, support trade facilitation, and guide investments in food systems. By integrating MIS feeds with the RFBS, countries and private actors will benefit from timely insights that can help manage shocks such as droughts, export restrictions, or sudden price spikes. For horticulture, where CEHA is driving competitiveness in crops like potatoes, onions, and avocados, trusted data will lower risks, improve market linkages, and raise farmer incomes.
Delegates pose for a photo with Dr. Gerald G Mweli, the permanent Secretary Ministry of Agriculture, United Republic of Tanzania (sited Center)
The forum reached consensus on several key outcomes. Stakeholders agreed on a blueprint for harmonizing MIS platforms at the regional level, ensuring interoperability and data standards that feed directly into the RFBS.
They also endorsed stronger integration of MIS with RFBS Phase II, including the upcoming mobile application, and highlighted the need for clear governance, sustainability, and long-term financing mechanisms. National and private-sector bodies, including TAHA, committed to mobilize data from packhouses, collection centers, and wholesale markets to strengthen the system.
To achieve this, the immediate next steps include: defining a common data dictionary and open API standards for regional use, piloting integration of MIS with RFBS in select countries, rolling out and refining the RFBS mobile application, and establishing a regional data-sharing compact with clear protocols on validation, privacy, and financing. Capacity building will also be critical, particularly for statisticians, market enumerators, and industry associations, while communications campaigns will be rolled out to demonstrate use cases and encourage adoption among traders, farmers, and financiers.
Looking ahead, the medium-term agenda focuses on scaling coverage to all CEHA countries and eventually the wider COMESA region, adding deeper data layers on logistics, cold chain, and quality standards, embedding RFBS updates into national and regional food security decision-making processes, and enabling private-sector applications such as inventory finance, route planning, and price insurance through open APIs.
By moving from fragmented data to harmonized, actionable regional intelligence, the Arusha forum laid the foundation for a sustainable ecosystem of food system data. If implemented as agreed, these steps will materially improve food availability, market efficiency, price stability, and farmer incomes across the COMESA–EAC region.
