Simple steps can strengthen marketing capacity. Validated RNRRS Output.
Abstract
This is one of 280 summaries describing key outputs from the projects run by DFID's 10-year Renewable Natural Resources Research Strategy (RNRRS) programmes.
Summary for Project title: R7151: Overcoming information constraints: improving horticultural marketing and technical information flows to smallholders.
For many producers, participation in sub-Saharan Africa's market systems means taking on high marketing risks and transaction costs. Studies in Ghana, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have helped to clarify the causes behind these costs and develop solutions to them. The solutions include long-term contractual relationships, which help align incentives and motivate market participants to share information. Written buyer-seller contracts offer several advantages over verbal agreements. First, they reduce uncertainty by specifying the terms of agreement. Second, the adoption of written agreements boosts the emergence of informal economic institutions, creating trust between buyers and sellers. The set of recommendations also includes improvements in the coordination functions of local government. These guidelines can contribute to pro-poor institutional innovation in other countries.
The CD has the following information for this output: Description, Validation, Current Situation, Current Promotion, Impacts On Poverty, Environmental Impact. Attached PDF (9 pp.) taken from the CD.
Citation
CPH09, New technologies, new processes, new policies: tried-and-tested and ready-to-use results from DFID-funded research, Research Into Use Programme, Aylesford, Kent, UK, ISBN 978-0-9552595-6-2, p 87.