Continental-scale assessment of spatial food market accessibility in Africa using open geospatial data

Abstract

Food market accessibility is a critical yet underexplored dimension of food systems, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. In this paper, we present a continent-wide assessment of spatial food market accessibility in Africa, integrating open geospatial data from OpenStreetMap and the World Food Programme. We compare three complementary metrics: travel time to the nearest market, market availability within a 30-minute threshold, and an entropy-based measure of spatial distribution, to quantify accessibility across diverse settings. We find pronounced disparities in accessibility: rural and economically disadvantaged populations face substantially longer travel times and reduced market availability, with some areas requiring several hours of travel. These accessibility patterns align with socioeconomic stratification, as measured by the Relative Wealth Index, and moderately correlate with food insecurity levels, assessed using the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. Overall, results suggest that access to food markets reflects broader geographic and economic inequalities and plays a relevant role in shaping food security outcomes. Despite limitations related to incomplete and spatially heterogeneous market data coverage, this framework provides a scalable, data-driven approach for identifying relative structural market accessibility gaps, supporting equitable infrastructure planning and spatially informed food security analyses across diverse African contexts.