FIELD Report 13: Value Chain Finance Guide

This guide, developed by ACDI/VOCA through the FIELD-Support LWA, is intended to provide tools and references to help practitioners—people who design, implement and support value chain development and agricultural finance programs—assess the financial products, strategic alliances and methodologies that can facilitate financing for investment in value chains.

The approach builds on the value chain analytical framework to identify and prioritize specific upgrades that enable value chain actors to benefit from market opportunities, and then focus on the financing that is required to achieve those upgrades. The objective is not to expand financial services as an end in itself, but to expand those financial services most critical to the growth and competitiveness of selected value chains. The activities in this guide assume that value chains have already been selected and analyzed, and that their most promising market opportunities have been identified.

The tools are organized in three chapters which are outlined below.

1. Value Chain Analysis to determine which upgrades and investments in value chains will improve competitiveness. Tools help the user think through what changes are needed to make critical upgrades, and which of these changes require a financial investment.
2. Financial Gaps and Actors to identify stakeholders who can deliver financial products and services to facilitate identified investments. Tools and resources help the user evaluate the incentives and constraints of value chain actors and financial institutions.
3. Bridging Financial Gaps to design activities that help facilitate the development and expansion of these products and services. Tools help practitioners plan resources around strategic interventions that build the long-term capacity of the value chain to respond to its investment needs.