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Parliamentary BriefPhoto: UNDPhelp companies to galvanise commercial and economicgrowth in regions previously seen as toodifficult and unprofitable to be attractive to business.Such business ventures must necessarily focus onmeeting the needs of poor customers and doing businesswith small-scale producers and entrepreneursin those regions. The result of this is that they canprovide better quality, more affordable and morewidely available essential goods and services in poorregions, and new opportunities for local producersand entrepreneurs to increase income levels. This,in turn, can help empower communities to reducehunger and poverty.A second goal of the work in Kenya is tostrengthen private sector engagement in shaping andcontributing to broader regional goals for sustainabledevelopment. Placing its work within a framework oflocally driven efforts to meet the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) has enabled the Alliance toengage the commitment and partnership of a broadarray of stakeholders and to ensure complementaritywith their efforts.There will be 14 initiatives during 2008 to testbusiness-led approaches along the food value chain.Pilot initiatives are undertaken by corporate ‘champions’and relevant partners, with the Alliance playinga facilitating and monitoring role. The MillenniumVillage Project, which works with approximately11,000 farming households in the Siaya district, is akey partner in a number of the initiatives.The Kenya pilot work has informed a set of businessmodels that strengthen food value chains andis defining strategies for scaling them more broadly.These include:• Expanding retail distribution networks for agriculturalinputs and food products. This includestraining, equipping and supplying small retailers,including agri-dealers, enabling diversification ofretailers’ products and services and improving accessto finance for customers, particularly farmers.• Sourcing high-value crops from small producersfor direct retailing through supermarkets or forprocessing into food and beverage products. Toachieve commercial-scale volumes, this requiresorganising producers into groups; training on productionand quality standards is often also needed.• Developing value-added processing and packagingopportunities for small producers. This includessmall-scale production of processed goods for retailsale, commercial-scale processing opportunities andthe development of new packaging technologies foruse in poor markets.• Expanding access to finance through innovativebanking, insurance and investment models, and newtechnologies (such as SMS-based financial transfers)that extend services to poor rural areas.As a complement to these commercial businessmodels, this partnership approach engages bothbusiness and government in dialogue and collaborationaround common priorities, including efforts toimprove the business enabling environment throughtargeted public investment in infrastructure, publicservices and capacity-building for farmers and entrepreneurs.The Alliance’s activities mirror a larger trend in theprivate sector toward seeking win-win solutions thatgenerate both social and commercial returns. Socialreturns relevant to hunger can include improvementsin household income; quantity, quality andaccessibility of food supply; nutritional and healthstatus; and capacity strengthening for food productionor entrepreneurship.Potential returns that are relevant to the businessand its bottom line — in the near or long term— include generating profit and increased marketshare, expanding distribution networks, increasingsupply chain efficiency, flexibility and quality,increasing innovation, securing brand-recognitionand reputational gains and strengthening regionaleconomic growth for the long term.The Business Alliance Against Chronic Hungeris the first business coalition in Africa to focus onreducing hunger by improving food value chains. Assuch, it serves as a unique vehicle and potential modelfor mobilising broader-scale private sector support foragricultural development.Its initial experience has demonstrated that a crossindustry,multi-stakeholder approach can facilitatebusiness engagement in chronically hungry regionsthat are largely unserved by the private sector. Establishingmarket linkages and providing needed goodsand services to producers and entrepreneurs can raiselocal food production and incomes.Securing and expanding these gains requires innovativeand collaborative approaches — and financing— to scale up commercially viable business models.When applied on a large scale they have the potentialto substantially accelerate sustainable food productionin Africa, while helping to reduce hunger andpoverty.Lisa Dreier is Director of Public-PrivatePartnerships at the World Economic Forum.28OCTOBER 2008