Prospero is increasing the competitiveness and value of locally produced food products in both domestic and international markets. We work with private sector-led consortia to develop geographically focused value chains and invest in stronger business relationships to achieve more efficient market systems, creating growth opportunities for our intervention partners and income-generating opportunities for Prospero’s target beneficiaries, mainly smallholder farmers.
We improve competitiveness in our three initiative areas, namely small livestock, legumes, and fruit and vegetables, by ensuring:
- access to local and international markets
- efficiency and effectiveness of value
- lobbying decision-makers to provide an enabling business environment
- access to impact investment
- inclusiveness and integration of MSMEs in the value chain
- addressing issues of climate change
- increasing locally made nutritious products.
Initiatives
We work to integrate livestock producing MSMEs into formalised value chains that improve competitiveness in domestic, regional, and international markets. The Small Livestock initiative will scale up the goat breeding and production pilot work carried out in 2020 and pilot similar consortium-based, market-led, geographically focused value chain approaches in the sheep and pigs’ sub-sectors. Prospero offers technical support such as business linkages and consortium building, as well as returnable and standard grants.
We strengthen the legumes sector and build private sector-led consortiums through strong collaboration among grain producers, aggregators, processors, and retailers. This leads to the production of high value products that reach both local and export markets. The 2021 Legumes initiative strategy focuses on three value chains: soya beans, common beans, and groundnuts and supports efforts to upgrade knowledge and skills around legume production.
We promote a collaborative and inclusive fruit and vegetable value chain through innovative support systems, and local sourcing and production of high-value products to serve domestic, regional, and international markets. The Fruits and Vegetables initiative strengthens horticulture consortia and establishes more market led, geographically focused value chain approaches in the fruits and vegetables sub-sectors. We support viable enterprises to develop business opportunities in agroforestry and access export markets through an improved enabling environment and compliance to export requirements. We offer technical support such as business linkages and consortium building, returnable and standard grants.
We look to work with private sector enterprises that operate in these value chains and are interested in being connected to other market players to collaborate in the sector. Prospero also wants to work with private sector companies that provide innovations to the challenges named above.