Introduction

The main purpose of this toolbook is to support practitioners in carrying out a thorough value chain analysis for making pro-poor development choices. As in most cases the analysis is or has been part of an intervention design process to assess what the best opportunities are for pro-poor development, this 3^rd section will discuss some recommendations to look at interventions and their feasibility. The choices for these will not only depend on the outcomes of the analysis but also on the resources that will have to be accessed for planning of interventions. These can be public resources, private sector investment plans or donor funds.

Steps 

Step 1     Determining desired impact

Depending on possibilities and limiting factors the pro-poor impact will vary. The core issue will always be to improve productivity as a way to achieve sustainable wealth creation. Depending on the value chain you are looking at and the place the poor have there this productivity will be expressed in different units.

For instance in case of the poor being smallholder cassava farmers, productivity increase will have to be to looked at as increased profit per hectare through boost of production, increase in quality or reduction of cost.

If one is looking at the poor as employees in a processing plant the productivity increase would possibly be expressed in terms of income / hour worked.

Sustainability of the interventions and their impact should always be the leading question. This is not just environmental sustainability but more the question whether the (often subsidised, externally supported) intervention will continue by itself after the end of the project or when the subsidy stops.

It is therefore important to not just look at what needs to happen but also to assess who is best placed in the market to carry out the intervention, both from an incentive as from a capacity angle.

Step 2     Determining the changes needed to create an impact

In most cases changes needed could be divided into 3 main groups.

A)     Direct contact and relationships within the value chain between (groups of) actors.

Elements to look at here are whether some of the following need to be / can be improved:

• The relationships between buyers and sellers
• Flows of information
• Economies of scale
• Product quality
• Contracting systems, etc.

B)     Availability and access to services that support chain actors.

Elements to look at here are whether the following need to be/can be improved:

• Innovation through Research & Development services
• Market information services
• Extension services
• Financial services
• Legal services
• Business to business brokering services, etc

C)     The business enabling environment in which the value chain actors operate.

Elements to look at here are whether the following need to be/can be improved:

• Investment promotion and incentives
• Business registration procedures
• Pro-poor inclusiveness of policies
• Infrastructure (roads, telecom, etc.)

Step 3     Determining the incentives and actors to work with

The main aim is to ensure that the value chain improvement interventions will continue and become self-sustaining beyond the project lifecycle. This means that not only the end beneficiaries should be considered but also the providers of the solutions. What are their incentives/motivations to become and stay involved and do they have the capacity to deliver or can that be developed?

For example, should price and trader information be provided for free by a ministry of agriculture or by a commercial mobile phone company? What are the best options to ensure that the service will continue after the project stops? Some useful guiding questions in this are: Who does and who pays?

Should entrepreneurship training be given for free to farmers/traders or should they pay/contribute financially to their own business skills development?

Often the answers to finding true sustainable incentives lie within the market. This is of course not always possible in weakly developed markets and remote locations where the poor are living but it deserves at least a serious effort to get as close as possible to a sustainable solution.

Step 4     Monitoring and evaluation of results and impact

In order to asses the real impact made a proper M&E framework should be developed. For this, logically, a baseline serves as the starting point to determine success over time.

Good indicators to measure change are important:

• Is it feasible to measure?
• When to measure?
• Is it precise?
• Is it context specific?
• Is it relevant?
• How much needs to be measured?

Elements to consider are:

Additionality:     Would the changes have happened without the interventions?

Displacement:     Will the gain that will be made (in the area studied) be at the expense of a loss in another area?

Multipliers:           What effort will have to be put in (also in cost) and what impact value will it generate?

There is a lot of literature available on these next steps. Some interesting sources are: [TO BE ADDED]