Involving businesses in market facilitation M&E

Let me be completely honest. I’ve been quite skeptical of the effectiveness of the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems on the big value chains project I’m currently working on. My main observations involved an M&E officer at a field office screaming at field staff to fill in forms, go interview smallholder farmers and “reach …»

3 comments | Category: From The Field |

Demonstration Farms – who should pay?

So back in March I wrote that “… the farmer’s success is tightly coupled to my success as an input dealer”. A great assertion, but in April I had a number of interactions with input dealers that started to reveal why this is more challenging in practice.

Current bad situation: A common characterization of …»

2 comments | Category: From The Field | Tags: - - - .

Why is the inputs sector a lever for change?

It’s a question I asked before coming to Ghana to work on a massive agriculture value chains project, and it is become increasingly important as the project has formed a cross-cutting team focused on transforming the Inputs and Equipment Services sector. There are many possible leverage points to drive an agriculture sector towards increased …»

5 comments | Category: From The Field | Tags: - - - .