Production, Finance and

Technology (PROFIT), Zambia

USAID
Cardno has been implementing USAIDs
landmark PROFIT project for the past
ve years, in partnership with the
Cooperative League of the USA (CLUSA).
Our approach rests on three key principles:
> Target high potential sectors that
include large numbers of poor
households so that broad-based
systemic change can be achieved;
> Follow a holistic approach to achieve
sustainable growth by addressing
constraints related to the core
relationship between providers and
consumers while bringing together
industry players to address systemic
constraints within the wider system
of rules, incentives, enforcement,
services, and information; and
> Practice market facilitation with a light
touch, ensuring that responsibility for
change remains with local stakeholders.
When Cardno and CLUSA launched the
project in 2005, total sales in PROFITs target
sectors (cotton, dairy / livestock, and staple
eld crops) were US$ 5.4 million. By the
end of 2008, they exceeded US$ 30 million.
Small cotton growers increased their yields
by 20% over the same period, with help
from PROFIT advisers. Most impressively,
in 2005 only 3,200 small farmers in Zambia
were using sustainable, high-yield farming
methods. By the end of last year, that
number had risen tenfold to 32,924.
PROFIT helped introduce small farmers to
greener and more productive techniques.
Market Development Facility
(MDF), Fiji and Timor-Leste
DFAT
MDF was established in July 2011 with
the aim to stimulate economic growth, and
generate additional jobs and income for
the poor and underprivileged, in key rural
and urban sectors of the countries in which
it will be active. MDF will partner with
strategic private and public sector players to
stimulate innovative business practices that
help make these sectors more competitive
and make them grow. MDF started working
in Fiji with an initial focus on tourism and
horticulture. In Timor-Leste, MDF is currently
undertaking a market systems assessment.
Cambodia Agriculture
Value Chain Program
(CAVAC), Cambodia
DFAT
*
Beginning in March 2010, the program
aims to increase farmer incomes in
the rice based farming systems of
Cambodia through accelerating the value
of agricultural production. CAVAC is
initially focused on the rice and fruit and
vegetable value chains in three provinces
(Kampot, Kampong Thom and Takeo).
The Program stimulates the value
chains so that smallholder incomes
are improved on a sustainable basis
by addressing key constraints. In
recognition of these constraints, CAVAC
is divided into four components:
> Agribusiness Development;
> Water Management;
> Research and Extension
(managed by ACIAR); and
> Business Enabling Environment.
* The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)
manages the Australian Governments ofcial
overseas aid program.
The building of a strong private
sector, operating within a sound
regulatory environment and
institutional framework, provides
developing countries with the
basis for sustainable economic
growth and poverty alleviation.
agribusiness development
www.cardno.com/emergingmarkets
About Cardno
Cardno is an ASX200 professional infrastructure and environmental services company,
with expertise in the development and improvement of physical and social infrastructure
for communities around the world. Cardnos team includes leading professionals who
plan, design, manage and deliver sustainable projects and community programs. Cardno
is an international company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange [ASX:CDD].
Contact
Melbourne
Level 3, 854 Glenferrie Road
Hawthorn VIC 3122
Melbourne
Australia
p: +61 3 9819 2877
f: +61 3 9819 4216
Jakarta
Level 15
International Financial Centre
Jl. Jendral Sudirman
Kav. 22-23
Jakarta 12920
Indonesia
p: +62 21 571 2430
f: +62 21 571 2429
Port Moresby
Suite 7, Ground Floor
CHM Corporate Park
Corner of Kawai Drive and
Waigani Industrial Estate Drive
Gordons
P.O. Box 1826, Boroko, NCD
Papua New Guinea
p: +675 325 4606
f: +675 325 0987
Oxford
Suite 3, Oxford House
Oxford Road
Thame, Oxfordshire
OX9 2AH
United Kingdom
p: +44 1844 216 500
f: +44 1844 261 593
Nairobi
Kiganjo House, Rose Avenue
Kilimani
P.O. Box 76448, 00508
Nairobi
Kenya
p: +254 20 271 3345
f: +254 20 271 3346
Manila
Level 3B
111 Paseo de Roxas Building
Paseo de Roxas
corner Legaspi Street
Legaspi Village
Makati City 1229
Philippines
p: +63 2 728 4027
f: +63 2 621 9429
Washington, D.C.
Colonial Place III, Suite 800
2107 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22201-3096
USA
p: +1 703 373 7600
f: +1 703 373 7601
Brussels
Avenue Louise 479
(Box 53)
1050 Brussels
Belgium
p: +32 2 282 03 33
f: +32 2 290 15 53
Abu Dhabi
11th Floor
Chain Ofce Tower
(Next to Morouj Apartments)
Muroor Road
Abu Dhabi
UAE
P.O. Box 55049
Abu Dhabi UAE
p: +971 2 642 9779
f: + 971 2 642 9889
Agriculture Quality Improvement
Project (AQIP), Cambodia
DFAT
AQIP established Cambodias rst high quality
rice seed company, the AQIP Seed Company,
which has since transitioned from a DFAT-
funded project into a commercial company.
With seed centres in four provinces, the
AQIP Seed Company provides high quality
seed to farmers throughout Cambodia. This
has increased the availability of quality rice
seed varieties and led to signicantly higher
rice production and milled rice quality. Since
initial sales of rice in 2002, it is estimated
that by the end of 2009, the AQIP Seed
Company will have increased farmers
incomes by more than AU$ 22 million.
AQIP has also produced a replicable model,
since adopted by other donors, linking key
players in the fruit and vegetable value
chain, establishing 24 farmer / marketing
groups and resulting in increased incomes
for 450 farmers and marketing agents.
Business Development
Services (BDS), Kenya
USAID
The six-year microenterprise development
project combined a targeted sub-sector
approach with broader BDS market
development efforts, facilitating the
sustainable delivery of essential business
development services, such as input supply,
spraying services, and business credit,
to smallholder farmers in the mango,
passion fruit and avocado sectors as well
as artisanal shers around Lake Victoria.
Kenya BDS linked more than 200,000
rural micro, small and medium enterprises
(MSMEs) (40% of them owned by women)
into commercial markets through formal
supply contracts. These include some
2,000 smallholders who now sell directly
to exporters, earning two-to-three times
more income than they received by selling
through brokers. The project facilitated
the development of more than 700 BDS
providers, including extension ofcers,
agro-stockists, shing gear retailers, spraying
services, commercial nursery operators, and
even brokers of savings mobilisation services.
Stability Peace and
Reconciliation in Northern
Uganda (SPRING), Uganda
USAID
Cardno began working with both USAID and
the EC in war-torn northern Uganda in 2006.
While the core of the project is economic
strengthening at the household level, it
also includes Peace and Reconciliation
and Access to Justice components. Our
approach is based around facilitating
the participation of poor and vulnerable
households in potentially-competitive value
chains (e.g. cotton, shea butter, cattle) by
working with government, tribal elders, lead
rms and other stakeholders to identify and
remove constraints to pro-poor growth.
Development of USAIDs
Microenterprise Development
Strategy, Timor-Leste
USAID
USAID, aware of Cardnos experience in
developing market-driven interventions
to alleviate poverty and spur economic
growth under difcult circumstances, asked
Cardno to help develop the Agencys rst
microenterprise development strategy for its
new Mission in Timor-Leste. Cardno assessed
the policy and regulatory constraints to
growth in the BDS and micronance markets,
identied larger systemic constraints
affecting both supply and demand among
microenterprises across a variety of sectors.
Cluster Competitiveness
Activity (CCA) and Fostering
Interventions for Rapid Market
Advancement (FIRMA), Bosnia
USAID
After four years of implementing USAIDs
US$ 16 million CCA project, Cardno was
selected last year to carry out the FIRMA
project which is designed to consolidate
the gains made under CCA and ensure
that sustainable benets reach the poor.
Both projects focused on wood processing,
forestry and tourism sectors all of which
are labour-intensive and command the
participation of large numbers of relatively
poor households. Cardno facilitated joint
activities in several areas, including
information-dissemination and training,
lobbying to improve the legal and regulatory
environment for doing business, and
joint operations to share resources and
costs. Cardno facilitated US$ 31 million
in commercial business nance to small
and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the
wood, tourism, and agriculture sectors
through a USAID-backed loan guarantee
program. Improved access to nance as
well as greater coordination and use of
BDS helped increase exports in the wood
processing sector by 140%, with value-added
products (as opposed to raw materials)
tripling in value over the life of the project
Australian-Nusa Tenggara
Assistance for Regional
Autonomy Program
(ANTARA), Indonesia
DFAT
ANTARA was a multi-sector regional
development program aimed at reducing
poverty in four target provinces within
Eastern Indonesia. ANTARA sought
to achieve poverty reduction through
strengthened and transparent district and
provincial governance; increased incomes
and improved access to basic services for
women and men through sustainable rural
economic activities; improved coordination
and cohesion amongst relevant donors;
and, targeted activities in partnership
with local government. Alleviating poverty
through improved agricultural practices
was central to improving incomes in the
targeted provinces rural areas. ANTARAs
focus on this area (57% of allocated
funds) recognised this importance. By
strengthening market linkages, the market
orientated activities delivered by ANTARAs
implementing partners had a positive impact
on food security and poverty alleviation.
ANTARA built the capacity of farmers to
produce and market rural products through
the establishment of farmer groups;
improved crop productivity; enhanced access
to credit and markets; and the provision
of more reliable market information.
Establishment of a Credit
Registry, Timor-Leste
World Bank / FIRST Initiative
One of the many supporting functions that
facilitate access to nance for enterprises
in every sector is a credit registry. Among
banks and micronance institutions, no
news is bad news if they do not have
information regarding borrowers repayment
history or nancial situation, they will charge
punitive interest rates or, worse, simply
refuse to lend. Building on a long history
of success in building pro-poor nancial
systems, Cardno worked with the new
Banking and Payments Authority (BPA) as
well as NGOs and micronance institutions
(MFIs) to develop a new credit information
system and draft enabling legislation for it.
Dezenvolve Setor Privadu
(DSP) Program, Timor-Leste
DAI / USAID
Acknowledging the role of the private
sector as a key driver of economic growth
and poverty reduction, the Government of
Timor-Leste (GoTL) is committed to providing
the best possible enabling environment
for private sector development. The aim
is to reduce the number of people living
below the poverty line. DSP focuses on
accelerating the development of Timor-
Lestes emerging agriculture, agribusiness
and private sectors, by building the critical
market linkages that will encourage
agribusiness, MSMEs to establish and
grow. DSP supports overall improvements
in the business environment through
improved critical market infrastructure and
reinforced linkages between key industry
players thus ensuring that GoTL revenues
collected from the private sector increase.
Increases in the supply of commercially
viable private sector services, domestically
produced products, and improved market
linkages for supplying / selling those
products will meet the objectives of the
program. DSPs work is organised into
four core program areas: agribusiness,
nancial services, commercial services,
and the business enabling environment.
Business Linkages Challenge
Fund (BLCF), Global
DFID
For seven years through 2008, Cardno
managed this groundbreaking US$ 30 million
global fund for DFID. The goal of BLCF
was to provide sustainable livelihood
opportunities to poor households in
developing countries, by providing matching
grants to large multinational and national
rms that partner with SMEs in their own
supply chains to transfer technology,
capital investment or know-how. In doing
so, the Fund also strengthened linkages
between SMEs and lead rms in globally
competitive value chains, focusing on
those that were most labour intensive,
transparent, and supported by clear rules
and robust supporting functions. Cardno
arranged, managed and monitored 63
grants totaling just over US$ 31 million,
leveraging more than US$ 60 million
in private funds in the process.
Nike Foundation Value
Girls, Kenya
Nike Foundation
The Project focuses on the economic
empowerment of adolescent girls and
young women in the Western and Nyanza
provinces in Kenya. The overarching goal of
the Value Girls Program is to improve the
social-economic welfare of girls and young
women between the ages of 14-24 years.
As an economic strengthening program at
its core, the program works to increase the
incomes of the young women who participate
in this program through increased sales,
higher productivity, better private sector
linkages, improved production technologies
and market information. In addition, we
also expect the project to provide other
benets or the girls including raising their
prole in their communities, strengthening
specic life skills and overall condence,
protecting their assets, and providing
a structured opportunity for mentoring,
creating safe spaces, and social networks.
Cardno has extensive experience
in selecting and enhancing
value chains that have the
greatest potential to marry
livelihood systems to market
systems. In this way, the value
chain approach can bring large
numbers of micro-entrepreneurs
and small medium enterprises
into viable markets, widening
productive employment, raising
household incomes, and achieving
transformational development.
A value chain encompasses the
entire range of activities required
to bring a product or service from
its conception to its delivery to the
end market buyer. The starting point
for value chain analysis is the end
market, even though most enterpri
se development projects begin with
some concept of a countrys existing
comparative advantages.
The Value Chain Approach

Enterprise development, product sector
strengthening, and country competitiveness are
approached from a variety of technical angles in
economic growth support programs. One method
effectively used by Cardno is the value chain
approach.