From traditional market aisles to national policy: How Peruvian vendors and partners helped shape an inclusive digital future

August 3, 2026

For years, Tomasa Alzamora sold her products in a traditional food market in Lima. Like thousands of other market vendors across Peru, her business depended on face-to-face interactions, cash payments, and loyal customers who visited her stall every week. Yet as commerce increasingly moved online, many vendors found themselves struggling to keep pace with digital tools, online marketing, and digital payments.

For vendors like Tomasa, digital transformation was not simply about learning new technology. It was about staying competitive, attracting customers, and securing livelihoods in a rapidly changing economy.

Turning Grassroots Innovation into Public Policy

In June 2026, the Ministry of Production of Peru (PRODUCE) approved the National Strategy for the Digital Competitiveness of Retail Food Markets, "Strengthen Your Market" (Resolución Ministerial N.° 00178-2026-PRODUCE), establishing for the first time a nationwide framework to support the formalization and digitalization of traditional food markets across the country. The strategy also officially adopted the Digital Competitiveness Thermometer, a diagnostic tool developed with UNDP Peru to measure and guide market digitalization efforts.

The approval represents far more than a new policy. It reflects years of collaboration among market vendors, municipalities and government institutions, public and private sector partners, and UNDP Peru. Along the way, UNDP Seoul Policy Centre’s catalytic support through the SDG Partnership programme on Supporting Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises through Inclusive Digital Transformation, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, helped expand pilot initiatives, facilitate knowledge exchanges, and generate evidence that informed broader efforts toward market innovation.

Turning digital exclusion into opportunity

Traditional food markets remain at the heart of Peru's local economy. Across the country, more than 2,300 markets support over 273,000 merchants and small businesses. Yet many vendors face significant barriers to participating in the digital economy. Only 17 percent of markets have access to quality internet, while digital literacy levels remain low, limiting access to financing, business support services, and new market opportunities.

Recognizing these challenges, UNDP Peru launched Innova tu Mercado (Innovate Your Market) in 2021 to help traditional markets strengthen their competitiveness, through innovation and digital transformation. Support from the UNDP Seoul Policy Centre's SDG Partnership programme between 2023 and 2026 helped expand the initiative's reach, refine its methodology, and amplify its impact.

A key feature of the SDG Partnership programme was the exchange of experiences between Peru and the Republic of Korea as well as with countries in the Latin America and the Caribbean.

Through study missions, technical exchanges and South-South and Triangular Cooperation, innovative approaches to the inclusive digital transformation for small businesses were shared among policymakers, practitioners, and development partners. These included experiences from Korean institutions such as Small Enterprise and Market Service (SEMAS), the National Information Society Agency (NIA), and private-sector actors like Kakao Corp.

These exchanges contributed to the continued evolution of Innova tu Mercado and practical tools such as the Caser@ Digital and the Digital Competitiveness Thermometer, helping make digital transformation more accessible and relevant for everyday market vendors.

By 2025, more than 60 traditional food markets had benefited from the Innova tu Mercado methodology. More than 2,400 vendors participated directly in the programme, while over 1,700 vendors received basic digital skills training through the Digiamig@s initiative, where young volunteers provided hands-on support to help vendors take their first digital steps.

Close-up of a hand pointing at a blue and white product label on a store shelf.

Peru's market digitalization journey demonstrates how local innovation, strategic partnerships, and international knowledge exchange can translate into systemic change. What began with individual vendors learning to use digital wallets, social media, and online tools has evolved into a national commitment to transform an entire sector.

As Peru moves forward with implementation of the new strategy, the experience offers a powerful reminder that digital transformation is most effective when it is inclusive, people-centred, and rooted in the realities of those it seeks to serve.

Market vendor wearing pink vest and glasses, gesturing amid fruit crates.

This story draws on the Government of Peru's announcement of the approval of Resolución Ministerial N.° 00178-2026-PRODUCE, as well as results documented by UNDP Peru through the SDG Partnership programme.