The Eastern & Southern Africa Agriculture Trade platform (ESAtrade) is COMESA regional Platform to enhance food market intelligence and encourage coordination of policy action in response to market uncertainty. The platform which is run by the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) – A COMESA specialised agency for agricultural commodity trade- seeks to lend support to the three ACTESA focus areas:

• Policy Research, Outreach and Advocacy
• Expanding Agricultural Commodity Market Services and Facilities
• Building Capacity for Commercialization

The initial focus of ESAtrade is on staple crops that are predominantly vital in the COMESA region food markets, namely Maize, Maize Meal (Flour), Rice, Sorghum, Millet, Wheat and Beans. ESAtrade seeks to strengthen collaboration and dialogue among main producing, exporting and importing countries in the COMESA region by better understanding regional trade flows in foodstuffs and apply this information and analysis to the planning of food aid, humanitarian response and strategic food export/import decisions. In addition, ESAtrade reaches out to other key stakeholders in National, regional and international food markets such as grain associations and institutional investors in commodity markets. ESAtrade is structured around four main pillars that are interlinked and communally reinforcing:

• Cross Border Monitoring System: tracks current cross border prices and volumes of informal trade in Maize, Maize Meal, Rice, Sorghum, Millet, Wheat and beans across 30 border points between Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
• RFBS: assembles the latest and regular data on production, trade, utilization and general availability (surplus/deficit) on food stocks for the commodities currently covered by ACTESA.
• Analysis: focuses on disseminating key market intelligence and analysis to guide policy makers and provide a forum to facilitate policy coordination.
• Outreach and Policy Dialogue: includes policy developments and other market drivers, and detects conditions that warrant the attention of policy makers.