Browse by Theme: Value Chains

In 2009, CARE invested USD 100,000 in Mobile Transactions Zambia, Ltd to create an e-voucher system to improve asset transfer programs targeting rural smallholders. The system has dramatically reduced costs, increased efficiency and transparency and is fostering the expansion of a network of over 500 enterprises dedicated to providing Zambian farmers with affordable access to quality inputs.

This case study looks at the Community Development Forum model developed by CARE Sri Lanka to build worker engagement on the tea estate communities of Sri Lanka.

In 2008, CARE launched an ambitious Market Engagement Strategy that aims to empower 10 million women and girls to transition from poverty to prosperity by  2015 by improving their ability to access and benefit from markets and employment. This report represents a first assessment of how we are doing. The report  begins by recapping the rationale for our strategic focus and our objectives. This is followed by a summary of CARE’s global achievements and highlights from some of our most progressive programs and partnerships. The report also reviews current activities and concludes with an outline of key issues to focus on as we move forward.

Coastal communities in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India suffered lasting effects in the wake of the 2004 tsunami, when more than 2,800 hectares of land were rendered unproductive and more than 6,000 traditional fishing boats were destroyed. The ramifications of the tsunami’s destruction were particularly devastating for women in coastal areas engaged in backwater fishing. Women from scheduled caste fishing communities faced a strong gender bias before the disaster, which restricted their participation in the fishing value chain to post-catch processing. This innovation brief talks about CARE's success in using market-based interventions to develop the crab value chain in traditional fishing communities which provided new employment opportunities in the crab farming sector, increased incomes and food security, and empowered highly marginalized women.

A Publication of the Oakland Institute & the UK Hunger Alliance.

High food prices in 2007-2008 threatened the livelihoods and food security of billions of people worldwide for whom getting enough food to eat was already a daily struggle. All over the world, individuals, civil society groups, governments and international organizations took action to cope with the crisis triggered by skyrocketing food prices.

This report investigates whether these responses were appropriate and effective and whether high food prices have brought about any changes in food and agriculture policies. Whereas price volatility remains a threat for the world’s poor, the intention of this report is to draw key lessons from these responses in order to inform future policies and programmes.

Through the Livestock Marketing and Enterprise Project and Livestock Purchusing Fund in Kenya CARE created a sustainable business that could act as a social enterprise and be profitable for the pastoralists long after donor project funding was finished. The enterprise also succeeeded in providing honest and fair cattle prices to the pastoralists by including them in pricing decisions and using forward contracts that would be based on a pre-agreed price per kilogram, and, in addition to the market-based interventions, a social component of encouraging gender equity and providing HIV/AIDS awareness education to the pastoralist communities.

COMLIVE provided CARE/DFID with a unique opportunity to strategically enhance a self-sustaining business model for rural development, linking private sector  markets, organic agricultural production, alternative livelihoods and natural resource management in a way that could effectively address the core needs of poor, vulnerable and food insecure families.