Mali Value Chain Finance Study: Using a Value Chain Framework to Identify Financing Needs

This paper is part of a body of work being conducted under the AMAP FS Knowledge Generation Task Orders with Abt, Chemonics, and DAI focused on value chain finance. The overall goal of the value chain finance work is to understand how best to facilitate finance to and within value chains in order to both:

1. increase the competitiveness of those value chains; and
2. increase the incomes of poor households active within those value chains.

The focus of this paper is work conducted in Mali in March through May of 2007. The basic process followed for the study discussed below was to:

• identify value chains with the perceived potential to grow and benefit a number of low-income households;
• identify upgrading needed for that growth; and
• identify financing needed for that upgrading.

This paper very succinctly summarizes the issues of end markets, upgrading, and finance. More detailed information is in the full Value Chain Assessment Reports prepared by the field team, and annexed to this synthesis.