Blog

Browse recent blogs of interest to the Marketlinks community. Use the search box or the filters on the left-hand side to refine the listing of blogs by keyword, topic, and/or region/country.

The “Domino Effect” of Disbursing a Single Microloan

Society Development Committee, or SDC, based in Faridpur, Bangladesh, is a microfinance partner of the Feed the Future Bangladesh Livestock and Nutrition Activity, funded by USAID and implemented by ACDI/VOCA. Through this partnership, thousands of people working in Bangladesh’s livestock sector have benefited from microfinance products.

Read more
Photo by ACDI/VOCA

Latest blog posts

Showing 2 results

Lucía Vasquez Méndez, 46, and her sons work harvesting coffee beans at Abel Mendez Bejarano’s coffee farm in San Juan Intibucá, Honduras. Abel receives technical support from Catholic Relief Services (CRS) through the Blue Harvest Project. Photo Credit: Oscar Leiva/Silverlight for CRS.

Coffee Market Systems Development to Protect Watersheds in Honduras

Author(s):

Catholic Relief Services
What does protecting watersheds have to do with the coffee market system? Surprisingly, a lot! Since 2014, Catholic Relief Services’ (CRS) Blue Harvest Program has worked with local partners in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua to restore water resources and transform coffee livelihoods. The mountainous, coffee-producing areas of Central America provide drinking water for millions of people. As land degradation and climate change threaten coffee production and contribute to growing water scarcity, the link between the coffee market system and natural resource management has never been more important.
Cacao seeds and pods at “Los Rosales” Cacao farm in Izalco, Sonsonate, El Salvador. Photo Credit: Oscar Leiva/Silverlight for Catholic Relief Services (CRS).

How a Cacao Resurgence is Revitalizing Degraded Land and the Agricultural Economy in El Salvador

Author(s):

Catholic Relief Services
Is it possible to reintroduce a crop with a compelling global value in a nation with substantial land degradation and little institutional crop memory? Yes, it’s possible. But only with a strategic approach to market systems development (MSD). With local partners CLUSA El Salvador, Acugolfo and Caritas, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has been working since 2014 to resuscitate El Salvador’s cacao sector through the Alianza Cacao project. Alianza Cacao aims to turn El Salvador into a key exporter and place of origin for high-quality, aromatic, fine-flavor cacao by stimulating production of an estimated 4,500 metric tons of Salvadoran cacao worth approximately $20,000,000 over the life of the project.