Integrating Poverty, Gender and Environmental Concerns into Value Chain Analysis

Since the mid 1990s, a literature has emerged on value chains that has helped increase our understanding of how firms and farms in developing countries are integrated in global markets. But few value chain studies have succeeded in explicitly documenting the impact of value chain activities on poverty, gender and the environment.

In this light, the paper develops a conceptual framework that can help overcome the shortcomings highlighted so far in "stand-alone" value chain, livelihoods and environmental analyses by integrating the "vertical" and "horizontal" aspects of value chains that affect poverty and sustainability. This frame­work is used to draw lessons for external interventions in value chains targeted at small producers and other weak actors in developing countries, particularly the kinds of interventions known as "action research" which puts emphasis on strategic and political approaches to achieving sustained improvements for disadvantaged groups.

A companion paper to the present one develops a strategic framework and practical methods to guide action research in value chains (Riisgaard et al., 2008). The entire methodology will be tested during 2008-09 by seven action research projects targeted at poor rural producers in Africa and Asia.

All projects were funded through a research grant from the Rural Poverty and Environment programme of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The grant was administered by the Overseas Development Institute, London