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The Global Environment Facility

United States. Congress. House. Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs. Subcommittee on International Development, Finance, Trade, and Monetary Policy

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 72


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Value chain based approaches offer tremendous scope for market-based improvements in production, productivity, rural economy diversification, and household incomes, but are often covered by literature that is too conceptual or heavily focused on analysis. This has created a gap in the information available to planners, practitioners, and value chain participants. Furthermore, few references are available on how these approaches can be applied specifically to developing agriculture in Africa. 'Building Competitiveness in Africa s Agriculture: A Guide to Value Chain Concepts and Applications' describes practical implementation approaches and illustrates them with scores of real African agribusiness case studies. Using these examples, the 'Guide' presents a range of concepts, analytical tools, and methodologies centered on the value chain that can be used to design, implement, and evaluate agricultural and agribusiness development initiatives. It stresses principles of market focus, collaboration, information sharing, and innovation. The 'Guide' begins by examining core concepts and issues related to value chains. A brief literature review then focuses on five topics of particular relevance to African agricultural value chains. These topics address challenges faced by value chain participants and practitioners that resonate through the many cases described in the book. The core of the book presents methodological tools and approaches that blend important value chain concepts with the topics and with sound business principles. The tools and case studies have been selected for their usefulness in supporting market-driven, private-sector initiatives to improve value chains. The 'Guide' offers 13 implementation approaches, presented within the implementation cycle of a value chain program, followed by descriptions of actual cases. Roughly 60 percent of the examples are from Africa, while the rest come from Europe, Latin America, and Asia. The 'Guide' offers useful guidance to businesspeople, policy makers, representatives of farmer or trade organizations, and others who are engaged in agro-enterprise and agribusiness development. These readers will learn how to use value chain approaches in ways that can contribute to sound operational decisions, improved market linkage, and better results for enterprise and industry development.
The book examines the market reaction to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) announcements over a period from 2003 to 2015. Mergers and acquisitions continue to be amongst the preferred competitive options available to the companies seeking to grow fast in the rapidly changing global business scenario. M&A as a growth strategy has received attention from developed as well as emerging economies. It has been extensively used by managers as an expansion strategy and also serves as an important instrument for increasing corporate efficiency. Recently, M&A has grown at a rapid pace, creating a need for research to analyze what drives this phenomenon and how it affects firms and markets. As such, this book evaluates the impact of M&A on short-term abnormal returns as well long-term financial performance. It also assesses the management view concerning the motives for undertaking M&A. In addition, the book investigates the corporate governance practices of the acquiring firms and their impact on the short- term as well as long- term performance of those firms.
First published in 1997, this volume contributes to the knowledge for the trade of vegetables, fruits and tubers (so-called horticultural commodities). As African policy makers try to keep pace with new developments in private food trade, they require knowledge of the structures of private trade systems and the factors that govern their long-term development. The study analyses the structure and development of horticultural marketing channels in Kenya. It is based primarily on surveys of some 500 farmers in four districts and 750 horticultural traders in 18 market places. Commercial horticultural farmers, domestic traders, export traders, agents, facilitators, marketing cooperatives and processors are all reviewed. The study devotes special attention to the efficiency of collecting wholesalers, and to the development of rural assembly markets. It develops a model which can elucidate vertical differentiation processes in the Kenyan horticultural channels. The analyses show that marketing channel theory can be of great relevance to the developing world. The proposed vertical differentiation model can aid in predicting future changes in horticultural marketing systems, in Kenya as well as in other African countries.