Organizational Capacity: Ensuring Successful Implementation in Value Chain Programs

1. Organizational Capacity: Ensuring Successful Implementation in Value Chain Programs Alexandra Snelgrove, MEDA Tracy Gerstle, CARE Thulasy Balasubramaniam, EWB

2. Panel Overview • Industry Challenges • Testing Our Capacity • Sharing Our Experiences: Different Perspectives • Tracy Gerstle, CARE • Alexandra Snelgrove, MEDA • Thulasy Balasubramaniam, EWB • Concluding Remarks • Question and Answer

3. Importance of Capacity Building Thousands of NGO staff have participated in market facilitation training….. Hundreds of Market Analyses and Value Chain Development Program Designs have been completed…. And yet, there are still relatively few, large- scale, successful market development programs….

4. Importance of Capacity Building Why?

5. Industry Challenges Working as a facilitator necessitates a different capacity and starting point… • Approach requires a unique staff mindset and expertise • Flexibility critical • Different program management and staffing models, operations, and budget required • Familiarity with business models and processes • Longer time to achieve results • Heightened emphasis on M&E and learning over life of program

6. Testing Capacity • Hypothesis behind the tool: • Initially developed for internal purposes to guide EWB’s investments. • Practitioners could benefit from breaking down market facilitation into more tangible parts • Purpose: • Disaggregate components of market facilitation • Knowledge/Understanding ( Know-What) • Capacity ( Know- How) • Offer starting point for conversation on organizational upgrading needs based on behaviours/evidence • Activity: • We will walk through 2-3 dimensions of the tool • For each read the different practices/behaviours within each dimension – which behaviours/responses best reflect your organisation? • Discuss with the individuals around you some of the challenges that you face in moving up to the next level? ( 5 minutes) • Key insights? Comments to share?

7. Where is your organisation? 20 Sophisticated MF Understanding • Know-What • 5 questions to gauge knowledge/understanding: • What is the problem? • What is the outcome? • What are the constraints? • What is the intervention strategy? • What is the role of org? • Know-How • 5 key dimensions of org : • Field Staff Capacity • M&E Systems • Management Approach • Organisational Culture • Relationships with Donor Know-What the approach 10 Conventional Agric Approach 20 10 Low High Know-How – ability to implement approach

10. Sharing Our Experiences Mennonite Economic Development Associates

11. Building The Organizational Capacity of CARE in Market DevelopmentA Quantum Leap in the Fight Against Poverty Tracy Gerstle Economic Development Unit Sustainable Livelihoods Cluster

12. Points of Light in Market Development Approaches at CARE Ethiopia: PSNP-Plus 2008-2011 $14 m USAID Bangladesh: Strengthening the Dairy Value Chain 2007-2011 $5.25 m BMGF Peru: Portfolio of Programs: IADB, Wal-Mart, USDA: Horticulture and Small Livestock Sierra Leone: Improving Child Well-Being Via Egg Value Chains 2009-2011 $2.4 m USAID Zambia: ADAPT Agro-Dealer Project 2008-2011 $3.05 m AGRA

13. 70 Country Offices, Annual Budget $700 m+ Decentralized Leadership, Program Management, & Governance Wide Array of Donors Wide Array of Socioeconomic Contexts & Programming Approaches Empowered National Staff with Promotion Tracks to Senior Management Culture of Staff Development and Retention, Resulting in Strong Managers/Generalists Context for Scaling Market Development

14. CARE MARKET ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY Lift 10 million women, girls and their families out of poverty by promoting dignified employment* and sustainable incomes above thepoverty line by 2015 through the development of agriculture and other value chains PROGRAM QUALITY CARE has the organizational and staff capacity to undertake high quality, scalable value chain programs LEADERSHIP AND ADVOCACY CARE is recognized as leading the industry in learning and practice on employing the Value Chain approach with an emphasis on gender equity and advocacy to lift poor women, girls and their families out of poverty ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING CARE will develop the processes and resources needed to continually improve upon the quality and impacts of its value chain programs by disseminating internal and external learning and innovation. VALUED PARTNER FOR THE PRIVATE SECTOR CARE is the partner of choice for the private sector in partnerships to advocate poverty alleviation and develop more competitive value chains and inclusive business that engage very poor women and girls. RESOURCE MOBILIZATION CARE leverages significant funding and other non-financial resources from major donors and partners to realize innovative, effective and scalable solutions to eradicate poverty via value chains. THEORY OF CHANGE MISSION Empower women, girls and their families to maximize their economic potential as producers, workers and consumers in higher value local, regional, and global markets.

15. Framework for Program Quality and Staff Capacity Global Capacity Analysis Benchmarking Monitoring & Evaluation System Supporting CARE’s Strategic Objectives on: Program Quality Organizational Learning Community of Practice M&E Peer-to-Peer Learning Management Formal Training E-Learning Courses: Intro to Market Dev Value Chain Analysis & Program Design Empowerment & Gender Commitment to Market Facilitation Capacity Building in Country Office Annual Plans Partnership with Human Resources Individual Staff Development Plans Mentoring Market Facilitation Coaching System

16. Furthering Sustainability: Enhancing VCD Capacity of Local Partners Alexandra Snelgrove Production and Marketing Linkages Mennonite Economic Development Associates

17. MEDA Pathways & Pursestrings - Pakistan Project goal - Integrate 16,000 rural, homebound women into lucrative value chains Four value chains (dairy, seedlings, embellished fabric, and glass bangles) in four geographic areas Complementary Goal - Develop the capacity of local non-government organizations (NGOs) and community based organizations (CBOs) Four Key Facilitating Partners (KFPs) (three public organizations and one private sector firm)

18. MEDA’s Approach

19. MEDA’s Approach Learning by doing theme whereby KFPsare involved in each step of the project – from value chain analysis onward Three elements of Capacity Building: Formal Classroom Style Training Mentoring Cross-KFP Learning Regular Training Needs Assessment

20. Project Challenges Partner background = traditional NGO paradigm Business acumen and value chain skills are absent Conflicting goals between departments (provider mentality) Skepticism towards the value chain approach throughout the organization Value Chain Approach is a new approach in Pakistan Staff turnover is high for some partners Transferring training to field workers

21. Initial Lessons Flexibility and dynamism in capacity program Regular training needs assessment Package of training tools and processes Cross partner learning Manage expectations of donor and partners Not just skills upgrading; mindset shifts Bringing it back to the impact for the producers

22. Putting Market Facilitation into Practice: A View from the Field Engineers Without Borders Canada Thulasy Balasubramaniam Agriculture Value Chains Team

23. EWB Introduction to EWB • Over 50 organisations in Africa on organisational capacity • Zambia, Malawi, Ghana, Burkina, • Long term secondments to partner organisations to provide on-the-job support • Dedicated support to over 15 organisations and companies in Zambia/Malawi for market linkages • We’re learning.

24. EWB Our Hypothesis Market Facilitation Organisational Capacity Value Chain Approach Sustainable Change =

25. EWB Range of Interventions Type 1: Service Delivery Type 2: Service Delivery & Market Linkages Type 3: Market Facilitation

26. EWB Field Staff Capacity Roles of Market facilitator Communicator Innovator Relationship Builder Coach Business Person Foundational Attitudes and Capacities

27. EWB M&E • M&E as Reporting & Accountability • Longer time frame • Reporting to donors Donors 1 Management • M&E as Knowledge Management • Captures information • On-going and quick feedback loops • Improve decision making • Adjust interventions • Supports staff 2 Field Facilitators Markets

28. EWB Management Approach

29. EWB Conclusions • Field staff capacity development is an on-going process • Knowledge management systems are required for: • Sustained staff behaviour change • Effective implementation • Management approach is the driving force for organizational change • This shift takes time and requires commitment and patience from managers and donors

30. Lessons in Staff Capacity and Organizational Change Management Systems Organizational Culture Knowledge Management Partnership Relations

31. Questions For Discussion • How do you deal with projects and organizations that combine traditional and market facilitation approaches? • What types of organizations are the most conducive to a market facilitation approach? • What are the most effective systems and incentives to shift organizational culture and staff behavior towards market facilitation? • To what extent can you shift an organization? • Can the shift happen in a typical project timeframe (3 – 5 years)? • What factors engender this shift? • What can donors do to support this shift? • What can we, as a community of practice, do to ease this shift?

32. Questions & Answers