Synthesis of findings from eight country level chain-wide learning workshops

Opportunities for small-scale producers' inclusion in dynamic markets in developing countries and transition economies: A synthesis of findings from eight country level chain-wide learning workshops.

By Felicity Proctor and Larry Digal  July 2008

Eight country workshops developed in partnership with national institutions and sponsored through the Regoverning Markets' (RM) programme were held between May 2006 and March 2008.

The objective was to open the space for dialogue on the key issues and opportunities that currently and or could in the future exist and be further developed for enhanced participation in modern agrifood markets by small-scale producers and entrepreneurs.  A key focus of these workshops was to build up single stakeholder voice and views and to bring together the views and opinions of multiple stakeholders.  The specific emphasis was to deepen the assessment of policies and institutions that can help or hinder the inclusion of small-scale producers and to seek to agree interventions that can remove barriers and foster the broad-based participation in domestic and regional modern agrifood markets.

The workshop approach was developed by the Regoverning Markets team and built upon methods and tools developed internationally including from market value chain study and other schools of development thinking and practice.  Based on the experiences gained through these chain-wide learning workshops (also known as Policy and Institutional Mapping workshops), a tool kit for general use by development practitioners has been published (Vermeulen et al 2008). This report presents a synthesis of the eight workshops including the key findings, observations on both process and content, and a postscript on resulting.