February 27, 2009

Campbell Presents at USAID’s "Escaping Poverty Traps” Workshop

Managing Director for the Enterprise Development and Competitiveness Ruth Campbell presented "Making Value Chains Work for the Poor" at the Feb. 26, 27 "Escaping Poverty Traps: Connecting the Chronically Poor to Economic Growth" workshop.

Serving on a panel that discussed integrating the productive poor into markets, Campbell said the value chain approach emphasizes incentives and stimulates behavior change in ways that strengthen competitiveness. She held that this behavior change affects interfirm relationships, the value placed on learning and innovation and the distribution of benefits.

Increasingly, Campbell explained, competitive value chains have the potential to impact the poor by creating sustainable employment at multiple levels, incorporating small-scale producers, promoting positive economic behavior and building demand for basic public and private services. However, donor-funded projects that provide assets and services directly to communities have a tendency to drive away the private sector, limiting the formation of relationships that are essential for sustainable, competitive industries. Conversely, donor-funded projects that support access to services for the very poor, and simultaneously foster growth and upgrading among the more entrepreneurial poor and emerging commercial actors, enable relationships with the private sector that can establish a path for the poor to emerge from poverty.

The workshop, held at Washington, D.C.,'s J.W. Marriott hotel, was sponsored by USAID, the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, IFAD, the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and AMA CRSP. Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and longtime agricultural development guru John Mellor were featured lunch speakers.

ACDI/VOCA is a leader in the value chain approach. To learn more, click here.