Project Design

Linking Small Firms to Competitive Strategies - USAID Breakfast Seminar Series 2005-8

    Description
    Since 2005, USAID has been conducting a breakfast seminar series on "Linking Small Firms to Competitive Strategies." The series explores the opportunities for microenterprises to compete through an industry-based approach to economic growth with poverty reduction. The MicroLinks website now offers audio recordings of the presentations.

    The 2007 presentations (in reverse chonological order):
    - David Neven presented: The Future of Tanzania's High-Value Vegetables Export Sub-Sector: An End Market Perspective
    - Hayden Aaronson presented: Revitalizing the Dairy Sector in Southern Serbia: A Comparative Study of Post-Conflict Value Chain Assistance
    - Jason Wolfe presented: Gender-Sensitive Value Chain Development: Learning from the Embroidered Garment Value Chain in Pakistan
    - Gary Woller presented 'Sound Principles for the Cost-Effective Integration of Impact Assessment into Program Performance Monitoring'
    - William Kedrock1 of Chemonics International presented: "Enhancing Smallholders' Value in the Value Chain" on the USAID/Ghana TIPCEE Project.
    - Uma Subramanian of FIAS (World Bank Group) presented: "Moving Toward Competitiveness: A Value Chain Approach."
    - Jesse Ribot of World Resources Institute (WRI) presented "Policy and Profit along Senegal's Charcoal Value Chain."
    - Frank Lusby of Action For Enterprise presented, 'Integrating Farmers into Productive Value Chains through Contract Farming.' (Bangladesh)
    - Emiliano Duch of The Cluster Competitiveness group presented 'Development as Change Management: Catalyzing Behavior Change and Upgrading Among Firms.'
    - David Bloom of Harvard University presented "Integrating MSEs into Value Chains: Evidence from Guatemalan Horticulture and Handicrafts."
    - Rob Henning of The OTF Group presented 'Building a Competitive Afghan Carpet Value Chain through Informed Strategy and Productive Attitudes.'

    The 2008 presentations to date:
    - Henry Panlibuton of Action For Enterprise presented: Incentives for Change: Findings from an Impact Assessment of Tree Fruit Projects in Kenya.

    The presentations from the series, as well as information and dial in instructions for future seminars, can be accessed from the website above.