Making the Connection: Value Chains for Transforming Smallholder Agriculture
Successful Strategies for Reaching the Very Poorest (Webinar)
The world’s poorest people (1.4 billion) require more than access to finance or new markets to escape poverty.
Agricultural Value Chain Finance Training
COURSE OBJECTIVES: Using participatory adult learning methods, by the course’s end you will:
ARIES Program Brief No. 5: ACDI/VOCA – ARFC
The following is one in a series of briefs highlighting the experiences and lessons learned under the USAID Agriculture, Rural Investment and Enterprise Strengthening (ARIES) Program. A $100 million, three-year initiative, ARIES aims to create a strong private sector foundation for a sustainable, market-driven, rural finance system in Afghanistan. Each implementing partner focuses upon a different component of the financial landscape, from household micro-loans of less than $200 to loans of over $1 million to larger scale Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
This Program Brief focuses on the ARIES effort to stimulate lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with ACDI/VOCA through the establishment of an independent finance company, the Afghan Rural Finance Company (ARFC). The ARFC’s objective is to support the creation of sustainable employment through long-term value chain financing. ARIES choose a strategy of direct investment in existing cooperatives and other private sector agriculture-related firms. ARFC supports the upper tier of SME financing with loans ranging from $20,000 to over $2 million. Within the overall ARIES scale, this is the highest level of loan products supported.
Training Curriculum: Facilitating Value Chain Development
A new and updated training curriculum from USAID
USAID is pleased to present a new and updated Facilitating Value Chain Development training curriculum. Based on feedback from trainers, participants and the value chain learning community, USAID has updated its Facilitating Value Chain Development training curriculum with revised training activities and improved presentations and facilitator notes. The curriculum uses an experiential, activity-based methodology to help practitioners think differently about their project strategies and their roles as facilitators of value chain development. Particular emphasis is placed on analyzing market relationships and facilitating pro-poor systemic change.
You will find overview documents and the modules' zip files in the download box. Files include facilitator notes, exercises, presentations, and many other resources for the following modules:
- Module 1: Understanding a Value Chain System
- Module 2: Understanding System Dynamics (Analysis)
- Module 3: Envisioning the Future of a Value Chain System (Strategy Development and Project Planning)
- Module 4: Managing a Value Chain System Project
This curriculum was developed by Mike Field and Hannah Schiff of ACDI/VOCA and Marshall Bear in August 2010, and updated by Lisa Kearns of ACDI/VOCA, March 2012.
Watch the two brief videos below to learn about the purpose of the curriculum and how to use these materials.
Curriculum Overview: | Using this Curriculum: | |
Key takeaways on working in complex systems from Donna Read and Frank Page
Donna Read and Frank Page of Managing Systems for Wellness share their key takeaways from the recent Breakfast Seminar #68,
Call for Feedback: GROOVE Briefs on M&E for Value Chain Projects
Author(s)
Human System Dynamics: Complexity in a rubber value chain
Development projects have been seeking to positively influence complex systems, such as value/market chains for many years. Working with these large systems has always been a challenge, and has generated many approaches and models designed to guide development projects.
Working in Complex Systems: The Rubber Value Chain in Indonesia (Event Resources)
Development projects have been seeking to positively influence complex systems, such as farming systems, small business systems, governance systems, and value chain systems since the advent of international development as a field of practice. Working with these large systems has always been a challenge, and has generated a large number of approaches and models designed to guide development projects. This presentation introduces a model for working in complex systems that has been developed by Human Systems Dynamics based on the science of complexity, and then demonstrates that model using the international development challenge of strengthening a rubber value chain in Indonesia.
