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Does the Value Chain Approach Help the Most Vulnerable?

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Moderator: Paul Sommers, Senior Agriculture Technical Consultant, Mercy Corps

Presenters: Charles Chikwiramadara, Value Chain and Marketing Specialist, ACDI/VOCA; John Nyirenda, Director Food Security, Save the Children; Wales Mgumbi, SANA Agriculture Manager, Save the Children

Content: Upgrading existing agricultural supply chains is a popular activity within development food aid programs. There are numerous success stories as supply chain actors generally see an increase in the value of their product. The picture for vulnerable households is less clear.

Discussion: A brief presentation by the moderator on the value-chain framework was followed by three separate practitioners presenting their program experience in using a value-chain approach in development food aid contexts. A key issue, related to crops, is post-harvest handling and storage; participants agreed to share learning on this from their food security programs.

A key question was whether or not strengthening limited-resource households to facilitate their entry into value chains ultimately results in improved household nutrition. The group could not answer this question but agreed that this would be an excellent topic for a TOPS small grant to an organization that could design and implement formative research on the topic.

 

The Way Forward:  Participants identified recommendations in three areas:

  Information Sharing

  • Identify case studies to share for program learning – look at successes as well as failures to explore the reasons why in both cases
  • Establish venue for sharing tools and materials for improved value chain interventions

Processes

  • Explore how to include the most vulnerable, including in-depth discussion of M&E evidence and the criteria for selection of vulnerable participants

Donor Practice and Policy

  • FFP should allow countries to propose districts beyond those in guidance and to fund interventions if the NGO can justify it. This would allow building on previous efforts / create economies of effort.
  • Follow on funding would allow implementers to move groups – e.g. farmer’s groups working with value chains – toward sustainability.
  • Make more dedicated agribusiness / value chain technical assistance available through funding additional staff/initiatives
  • USAID should fund follow-on evaluations / ex-post research after 3-5 years to explore sustainability and results