A Note on Indicators of Sustainability for Value Chain Projects

This note deals with the challenging problem of how to determine whether sought-after changes observed during the implementation of a value chain project are likely to be sustainable beyond the life of the project. Indicators of sustainability seek to determine whether an ongoing process of transformational change is occurring, a process that involves both tangible and intangible factors that interact to define the development process of a value chain. The paper first defines key terms, discusses the key steps in value chain project design that affect the selection of indicators, and ends with suggested indicators of sustainability.