FIELD Facilitation Brief 5: Addressing Absence of Lead Firms in Value Chains

Presents the results of the fifth “cycle” of discussions of the FIELD Facilitation working group. The objective of this working group (see Appendix A for a list of participating organizations) is to share experiences and identify best practices for facilitating value chain development projects – and more specifically how projects can best work with “lead firms” (LFs) to accomplish their goals. In an effort to structure the work, a series of six “discussion cycles” has been developed that are taking place over a one-year time period (see Appendix B for a list of these cycles). Each cycle takes place over a 2-3 month period and consists of preliminary tasks, working group discussions, and a synthesis of results. This Cycle 5 document, entitled “Addressing Weak / Nonexistent Functions in the Value Chain,” discusses how development programs can promote lead firms to take on missing functions. It begins with a description of value chain functions (and lead firms providing those functions) that are sometimes missing in value chains. This is followed by a presentation of different approaches that development organizations can pursue to promote lead firms to take on the missing functions, including real-life examples from development programs. The focus of Cycle 5, as with all Cycles in this Working Group, remains on lead firms, which, as defined in Cycle 1, are the small, medium and large enterprises with existing or potential linkages with targeted MSMEs.