As I walked home one evening, I glanced at the woman selling tomatoes by the roadside. At first thought, one might conclude that Mama (Mummy) Sarah who runs a small tomato stall in the market knows little about trade policy. Perhaps she doesn’t. At least not in the way the trade analysts frame it with jargon, acronyms, and policy documents.

Mama Sarah understands realities that many experts do not. She knows the weight of a nearly impassable road to her garden. She bears the burden of costs that eat into her already small margin as she ferries tomatoes to and from the market. She does not feel the effect of tax increases because she files them directly. She feels them because every cost is passed down until it reaches her stall. When her profit shrinks, it’s not just numbers on a spreadsheet. It means fewer meals on the table for her five children. It’s the struggle of deciding whether to pay school fees, treat a sick child, or buy soap.

Mama Sarah may not use terms like surge in imports or market access as experts define them. She might not speak of trade facilitation, intergovernmental committee, or Council of Ministers. Words like nominal income or taxable income are not ones she uses in expert contexts. However, she knows her goods would do better with market access to wealthier customers. She understands what it means when cheaper goods flood her neighbors’ stall from across the border. This leaves her with unsold tomatoes that will rot before the week is out.

She feels the sting when a smartly dressed woman negotiates for more tomatoes at a lesser price. The woman does not realize the consequences. For her, it means selling below cost. She needs to do this just to afford medicine for a sick child. When she turns to the transporter, she is reminded that he is also struggling. He won’t move her produce without a down payment.

Mama Sarah understands that politicians and experts sit in boardrooms, talking. What she doesn’t understand is why those conversations often fail to see her.

For Mama Sarah, trade isn’t abstract, it is survival. It is about whether her five children eat a balanced meal. Or do they go to bed hungry under a roof or on the streets? It’s whether school fees get paid or postponed for a whole year. She doesn’t have the vocabulary of economists. But she has the lived experience of every policy we debate, negotiate, or sign. And in her lived reality, every policy that fails to consider her is a policy that misses its purpose. Mama Sarah teaches us that the language of trade is not only spoken in boardrooms. It is spoken in the marketplaces, in the villages, and in our homes.

This is the heartbeat in every Policy: Policy is not about jargon; it’s about mama Sarah or Tata Nankya. It is not about documents but about the dignity of mama Sarah and Tata Nankya. If policy does not reach Mama Sarah, then we have only succeeded in creating documents, not dignity.

In my experiences within trade policy circles, I have learned to ask myself. What if I were mama Sarah, whose income is not guaranteed? Who does not expect travel allowances for her work? Who cannot qualify for a loan because her income is unpredictable? Who has no safety net only her determination and her faith?

Mama Sarah may not understand the highly polished terms of global trade. However, she is the reason I write. I debate, initiate, negotiate and implement trade policy. I have come to know deeper, not just on paper, that policy without mama Sarah at its center is empty.

Mama Sarah reminds me that the true test of trade policy is not in how elegant it sounds on paper. Instead, it is in how much it improves the lives of the most vulnerable. Every time we negotiate, draft, or approve a policy, may we ask ourselves:

• How will this affect the Mama Sarahs of our community?
• Will this create opportunity or add burden?
• Are we crafting agreements that reach the real markets where real people live?

Tata Nankya, Mama Sarah, Walugembe may not sit in the policy rooms. They may not sign the agreements. But they are the reason the rooms exist.

With Love

Elizabeth R. Auma Kiguli