Facilitating Pro-Poor Business : Why Advice Goes Further When It’s Backed by Investment

by Boomsma, Marije J.; Laven, Anna; Piters, Bart De Steenhuijsen

• ISBN13: 9789460221552
• ISBN10: 9460221556
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-08-31
• Publisher: Stylus Pub Llc

Summary

In development cooperation there is a trend that the private sector is seen as an integral part of the solution to reduce poverty. As a result pro-poor businesses emerge, involving actors such as private businesses, the public sector, farmer organizations and NGOs. There are some challenges in bringing these different actors together in a social enterprise. Generally, there is a need for a facilitator to align interests, bridge cultural differences, fill gaps in skills, and deal with power differences, wrong expectations and prejudice. The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) has experience in playing this role. But over time this role has changed from being an advisor with little mandate to act and no ownership to being a full business partner, backed by investment. Through this new role they have achieved more direct influence on the conditions under which smallholders are active participants in business. But other roles are also important. The five cases in this bulletin (ginger in Sierra Leone, tuna in Ghana, organic cocoa on the Dominican Republic, biodiesel in Mali and a trade house in Mali) illustrate that each type of facilitating role has its advantages and disadvantages, and that there are many factors a good facilitator needs to take into account when bringing together the public and private sector and civil society to form a pro-poor business. The hope is that other organizations recognize themselves in these roles and are inspired to make similar (or better) choices so more people will benefit.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. 5
What is this bulletin about?	p. 5
Who is the bulletin for?	p. 5
Parts of the bulletin	p. 6
How was the book produced?	p. 9
The writeshop process	p. 6
Writeshop advantages	p. 7
Facilitating pro-poor businesses	p. 9
Introduction	p. 9
The role of the facilitator	p. 9
Changing position, responsibilities and challenges of actors involved in pro-poor businesses	p. 11
Private sector	p. 11
Producers and local traders	p. 14
Public sector	p. 15
Ngos and donors	p. 16
Tensions between different actors	p. 16
Bridging business and development - in practice	p. 19
Sourcing ginger from Sierra Leone: no success without transparency and communication	p. 21
Introduction	p. 21
Reviving the ginger industry	p. 21
Need for a full mandate	p. 25
Inclusion of small producers	p. 25
Communication and leadership is to be blamed	p. 26
The future	p. 26
Supporting sustainable tuna fishing in Ghana	p. 27
Introduction	p. 27
Starting a new partnership	p. 27
Exploratory stage	p. 28
KIT's evolving roles	p. 31
Pro-poor impact ù more potential than facts so far	p. 32
Achieving transparency	p. 33
Organic Cocoa Dominican Republic S.A.	p. 35
Introduction	p. 35
The start-up process	p. 35
KIT Reflections on changing roles	p. 38
Pro-poor business vs. conventional business approaches	p. 38
Processing biodiesel from jatropha with smallholders in Mali	p. 41
Overview	p. 41
How a biofuel business was born	p. 41
Jarropha goes global	p. 42
Overcoming constraints	p. 44
KITs changing role	p. 45
Designing for pro-poor impact	p. 45
Towards good governance	p. 33
Yiriwa SA: Setting up a trade house for organic products made in Mali	p. 47
Introduction	p. 47
Growing organic - responding to demand	p. 47
KIT reflections	p. 49
KITs changing role: from advisor to active shareholder	p. 53
Seeking pro-poor impact	p. 54
Governance	p. 55
Facilitating pro-poor businesses: what have we learned?	p. 57
Lessons from cases	p. 57
Changing positions of pro-poor business partners	p. 59
The involvement of a knowledge institute in pro-poor business	p. 60
Contextualizing roles	p. 61
Final reflections	p. 63
Epilogue	p. 65
Common problems with business plans	p. 67
A local network in the South is crucial	p. 68
Public funding is needed	p. 68
New investments	p. 69
The future	p. 69
Resources	p. 71
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