Enterprise Development

Generating wealth through productive markets

ACDI/VOCA is helping to shape the international development community’s approach to economic growth and poverty reduction by expanding the focus beyond small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to include SME integration into increasingly profitable markets. By providing training and technical assistance and facilitating access to capital and market linkages, ACDI/VOCA’s programs help individual firms to maximize market opportunities. External factors, including various effects of globalization, the business enabling environment and the availability and quality of business support services, also affect economic performance. Consequently, ACDI/VOCA interventions increasingly focus on opportunities for and constraints to growth and competitiveness of the entire industry in which SMEs participate.

ACDI/VOCA has pioneered the use of value chain analysis as a tool with which private sector decisionmakers identify ways to increase the productivity and competitiveness of the industry in which they operate. Our approach to value chain analysis includes a review of the industry itself and the external factors influencing its performance. It employs dynamic, participatory approaches and leads to interventions that increase firm and industry access to higher-value markets through improved quality, greater efficiency and innovation. ACDI/VOCA’s research has contributed to the understanding of the determinants of an industry’s ability to participate and compete in an increasingly globalized marketplace.

The requirements of the consumer ultimately drive a product’s or service’s characteristics, including quality, quantity and price. ACDI/VOCA helps link the products and services of small firms to buyers in national and global markets directly and through efficient intermediaries. Global standards are an increasingly important market requirement, and ACDI/VOCA has helped many firms obtain and maintain certification in ISO 9000, ISO 14000, ISO 22000, HACCP, EurepGAP, USDA Organic and Fair Trade certification.

In a number of countries ACDI/VOCA is working to improve the laws, regulations, policies and public infrastructure to support the efficient movement of products through a supply chain. In addition to working directly with government agencies, ACDI/VOCA develops the capacity of industry associations to advocate on their own behalf. Drawing upon its 43-year history of strengthening enterprise groups and associations, ACDI/VOCA addresses the mistrust, poor communication and power imbalances that often plague relationships between firms within an industry, leading to increased efficiencies and improved information dissemination and skill transfer.

ACDI/VOCA strengthens the delivery and enhances the quality of critical financial and business services. These services facilitate the successful investments of many firms in increasing their efficiency, differentiating products or penetrating new markets. These investments, called upgrading, are essential to improved industry performance. While most of our clients and beneficiaries are small firms, ACDI/VOCA helps upgrade firms of all sizes including multinational firms that offer opportunities to large numbers of smaller firms.