Challenging chains to change: Gender equity in agricultural value chain development

This book (KIT, Agri-ProFocus and IIRR. 2012, 337 pages) explains how development organizations and private entrepreneurs have found ways to improve the position of women in value chains – especially small-scale women farmers and primary processors. It outlines five broad strategies for doing this: (1) working with women on typical “women’s products” such as shea, poultry and dairy, (2) opening up opportunities for women to work on what are traditionally “men’s commodities” or in men’s domains, (3) supporting women and men in organizing for change by building capacity, organization, sensitization and access to finance, (4) using standards and certification to promote gender equity, and (5) promoting gender-responsible business.

The book draws on dozens of cases from all over the world, covering a wide range of crops and livestock products. These include traditional subsistence products (such as rice), small-scale cash items (honey, vegetables) as well as export commodities (artichokes, coffee) and biofuels (jatropha). The book includes a range of tools and methodologies for analysing and developing value chains with gender in mind.

By bringing together the two fields of gender and value chains, this book offers a set of compelling arguments for addressing gender in value chain development. It proposes an analytical framework that builds on both fields. It outlines five strategies for development organizations and enterprises to ensure that women can participate in value chains as full partners and decision-makers. The overall result is to improve value chain performance, with both women and men able to enjoy the benefits.

Facilitating innovation platforms to trigger institutional change in West Africa

One finger cannot lift a rock. Facilitating innovation platforms to trigger institutional change in West Africa
Editors: Suzanne Nederlof, Rhiannon Pyburn 

© 2012, Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) 

ISBN 9789460221972 | KIT Publishers, Amsterdam | Paperback | 142 p. |  

There is growing consensus on the value of multi-stakeholder approaches to natural resource management, institutional change, poverty alleviation, climate-change mitigation and adaptation, and food security. Using such approaches to foster institutional change implies a special twist.

This book presents the hands-on experience of facilitators who have struggled at the coal face with this approach. We hope that others in this emerging profession will be able to learn from their experience.

The research programme Convergence of Sciences (CoS, 2002–6), funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, went through a learning process with respect to what determines opportunity for African smallholders. Typical for the time when it was conceived, CoS focused on participatory technology development in eight West African communities. The conclusion was that, yes, optimally appropriate technologies can help smallholders, but the institutional setting often makes them either impossible or unattractive to implement.

Smallholders face such small windows of opportunity that appropriate technology is often irrelevant. What emerged is that opportunity can be captured only by creating appropriate conditions, i.e., by tackling institutional factors.

At the time of writing, CoS-SIS still has two years to go. Its research is ongoing. So this book cannot deliver the programme’s final conclusions or report on institutional change. Instead, it describes the experiences of nine part-time “research associates”, who facilitate forums created by CoS-SIS, called “concertation and innovation groups”. These nine forums, one per facilitator, each deal with a topic area (or “domain”) in one of the three countries.

The production of this book has been co-funded by CoS-SIS and KIT. KIT’s contribution to this publication has been made possible thanks to core support received from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Guide to making commodity-based projects work

Edited by Paul Mundy et al. 
Published by Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) 
Website: www.kitpublishers.nl 2011, 150pp, ISBN 978 94 6022 156 9(Pb), €25 or free to download

From sorghum to shrimp is an accessible, sensible and practical, and a very valuable guide to making commodity-based projects work. It draws on the experience of 11 Commonwealth Fund for Commodities projects, from Asia, Africa and Latin America, guiding the reader through a series of key questions. What commodity to choose is the first: there are advantages to choosing a 'privileged' or established commodity like cocoa, cotton or coffee, but for the poorly resourced community, an 'infant' crop, such as bamboo in East Africa, or a neglected, 'orphan' crop like sorghum, will have less competition from big players and is often the best choice.

Working in a single country helps to reduce complications, which is a good idea as most commodity projects need to focus on bottlenecks at various points in the value chain, and not expect to achieve a result from action on just one issue. Being flexible throughout the project implementation, responding to unexpected problems, taking advantage of new opportunities and constantly assessing whether the project goals need to change in light of the evolving situation, are all important ingredients to success. Other chapters focus on the roles of stakeholders and partners, using market opportunities and achieving a lasting impact.

New Agriculturist: Book reviews - From sorghum to shrimp: A journey through commodity projects