To monitor household food accessibility, the VAM team in Pakistan is developing
a comprehensive market price monitoring system which is enabling WFP to better understand
how food prices are impacting households. This system links changes in international
wholesale prices for major commodities to changes in wholesale and retail prices
at major, regional markets in Pakistan. The impact of regional price fluxuations
upon district and local markets are then assessed using a unique and innovative
local market monitoring system. The impact of international and national factors
in local level food prices are then discussed in VAM Monthly Market Bulletins and
monthly variations in staple commodity prices are examined using spatial analysis
techniques.
This market price information system relies on secondary as well as primary data
collection. International and national regional market commodity prices are collected
in the conventional way, from secondary sources. These primarily include FAO's market
price monitoring system as well as the monthly commodity price data from the GoP's
Federal Bureau of Statistics. District and local level market prices, on the other
hand, are collected first-hand from jmarkets throughout KP and Balochistan. Data
collection is conducted in partnership with the Provincial Bureau of Statistics
in KP and Community Uplift Programme in Balochistan. Overall, prices for 15 commodities
have been measured on a monthly basis in KP for over one year, with most major markets
in the Swat Valley Region included. Expansion to the remaining districts has been
agreeed to and will be implemented in the latter half of 2011. In Balochistan, commodity
prices will be collected, starting in April 2011, in 32 district and local markets
across the province.
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It is our hope that this market price information system will be useful to an assortment
of agencies for targeting and early warning. It is also designed to better inform
WFP programming about the impact of food and cash assistance on local market prices.
Monthly Market Bulletins can be downloaded from this page.
Maps detailing estimated prices as well as projected monthly food price inflation/
deflation for various commodities in KP and Balochistan are discussed further at
this link.
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Monthly Market
Price Bulletins
Market Assessments
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