Presented by Eliud Birachi (CIAT) at the Africa RISING Ethiopia Project Implementation Meeting, Addis Ababa, 13-14 February 2013

1. Proposals for Africa RISING
Ethiopian Highlands Research
Component 3 – Markets, value
chains and stakeholder platforms
Eliud Birachi (CIAT)
Africa RISING Ethiopia project implementation meeting, Addis
Ababa, 13-14 February 2013

2. Objective
 Promote innovative approaches for identifying
market opportunities and increasing the
participation of farmers in more efficient markets
while promoting the participation of the private
sector
 Contribute to building multi-stakeholder
partnerships and platforms to implement
innovations in the agricultural sector in Ethiopia

3. 1- Participatory market chain analysis
To identify bottlenecks and actors involved in the supply chain, and
develop plans and strategies to overcome them
 Collecting and analyzing data from primary and secondary sources.
 Compiling value chain maps to organize the data, analyzing data to
reveal opportunities and constraints within the chains
 Compiling catalogues of best bet components to resolve the
constraints
 Determining interventions and points of leverage for targeting
research investments to have large-scale impact and designing
strategies for sustaining the interventions
 Mobilizing and vetting strategies with stakeholders, communication
and knowledge sharing systems

4. 2- Characterization of value chain actors
and linkages
 Identify and characterize current and potential actors at each stage
of the value chain including their functions
 Identify and evaluate what services are available and required to
support the value chain actors
 Identify and evaluate the nature of linkages between actors in the
market chains and strengthen them

5. 3- Functioning multi-stakeholder platforms
The purpose is to validate and promote the potential of multi-stakeholder
platforms as a more coordinated and cohesive approach to improve delivery
and impact of agricultural research.
 A rapid stakeholder analysis of the key partners and mapping stakeholder
actions and interactions
 Facilitate establishment of a stakeholder platform steering group to
prepare and guide the preparation of the multi stakeholder platform(s)
 Capacity building of identified value chain actors on how to operationalize
platforms
 Design participatory based monitoring and evaluation tools for platform
management and implementation activities

6. Creating systematic impact through functional
platforms
Supported
by: Credit providers
Scale of platform operation is flexible
Researchers
National Platform
Markets/Traders (linked to Policy (national and
each zone below) regional)
Market information
Impact Zone 1 Impact Zone 2 Impact Zone 3 Impact Zone 4 providers
Physical infrastructure
Farmers in selected regions (through farmer organizations/coops)
services- warehousing
6

7. Illustrative case: A potato IP in Rwanda
 Identified and prioritized issues in the Irish potato value chain: the market–technology–
policy interface of low prices, poor yields and post-harvest handling.
 Interventions: access to planting material of market preferred variety, rapid seed
multiplication, dehaulming before harvest, Value addition (potato
washing, sorting, grading, and packaging); linking to credit and niche markets; and exploiting
the favorable policy environment.
 Facilitation by one of the stakeholders (a private female trader) to buy Irish potatoes from IP
members and with input from research,
 farmers role: adopted the use of clean seeds, inputs and crop management practices to
provide good quality potatoes for the Kigali market.
 Results:
 Delivered tonnage to selected markets increased by over 10 times within 2 years
 Created 15 jobs in the small production area,
 Credit access to traders and farmers (to allow them to dehaulm and wait for the potatoes
to cure and hence increase shelf life).
 Prices: Farmers immediately received a price increase of 30% above the usual levels.
 Summary: key outcomes include improved potato quality, increased yields, improved shelf
life and increased prices and incomes.

8. Africa Research in Sustainable Intensification for the Next Generation
africa-rising.net