Aug 19, 2014 | by The SEEP Network
Two market development organizations - Practical Action and Fintrac - shared experience integrating 'push' interventions in order to strategically maximize the poverty-reducing and inclusive nature of their market development efforts. Practical Action shared learning using asset transfers on the "Making Agricultural Markets Work for Landless, Marginal and Smallholder Farmers in Bangladesh" project. Using the Feed the Future Acceso project in Honduras as the focal point, Fintrac shared the bundle of interventions they utilized - including financial services, policy and health/nutrition - to fulfill the project's mandate to lift 30,000 households above the poverty line, including 18,000 living in extreme poverty.
This was an exciting LEO project-sponsored webinar, hosted by SEEP's Market Facilitation Initiative (MaFI) and the Strengthening the Economic Potential of the Ultra Poor (STEP UP) Working Group.
Abdur Rob is head of Practical Action Bangladesh and a specialist in market-system analysis, private-sector and value-chain development, with 25 years' experience in Agriculture and Participatory Market System Development (PMSD) approach to field crops, vegetables, livestock, dairy, beef fisheries and post-harvest agro-processing. He has assisted many NGOs/INGOs and donors in agricultural value chain analysis, project design and capacity building on Making Market Work for the Poor (M4P). He provides technical consultancy services in strategic review and training to the Making Market Work for Char (M4C) project jointly implemented by Swisscontact and Practical Action. He has been working with Practical Action Bangladesh since 1998.
Andrew Medlicott is the Latin American and Caribbean Director of Fintrac Inc. and has worked for 25 years in the Caribbean, Central and South American in agricultural production, postharvest, marketing, and more recently in nutrition, renewable energy and natural resource management. He has been the director of USAID and MCC-funded technical assistance projects in Honduras, Jamaica, and the Eastern Carribean. Dr. Medlicott is currently the Director of the USAID-ACCESO project in Honduras. The Acceso project is a Feed the Future agricultural market development project with an explicit mandate to lift 30,000 households out of poverty - including 18,000 living in extreme poverty - and a strong focus on health and nutrition as a key element in addressing the multi-dimmensional and generational aspects of poverty. He holds a BSc in Biological Sciences from Wolverhampton University, UK and a PhD in Postharvest Physiology.
Glen Burnett is Practical Action’s Director of US Operations, where he focuses on expanding their message to the US-based development and policy communities. Practical Action works alongside communities of extreme poor to find practical solutions to improve their lives, bringing a collaborative focus to create long-term results in inclusive markets, energy, agriculture and resilience, water and sanitation, and climate adaptation. Before joining Practical Action, Glen moved back and forth between development and the private sector, most recently focusing on developing customer experiences for a Latin American telecom. He’s passionate about developing and designing the beneficiary experience, and bringing together disparate actors. Glen has lived and worked throughout both Latin America and Africa, and has an MBA from the University of Maryland.
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