Small Producer Empowerment and Inclusive Markets

The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and the ICCO Consortium (ICCO) are involved in the strategic partnership Convening and Convincing, which aims to ensure that in and by this partnership civil society organizations (CSOs) and civil society at large, both in the ‘global South’ as well as the overall global context, can contribute to decreasing inequality and injustice in societies.

SPCC program is being implemented by the Civic Engagement Alliance, which is consists of six members: ICCO (lead), Kerk in Actie, coPrisma, Edukans, Wilde Ganzen and CNV International. A central objective of Convening and Convincing is to counter the limited, and decreasing, political space for CSOs around the world. Strengthening the lobbying and advocacy (L&A) capacity of CSOs is central to our Theory of Change (ToC) and the themes addressed in the ToC are closely related to the Multi Annual Strategic Plan (MASP) of ICCO Cooperation, which builds on two main pillars: ‘Justice and Dignity for All’ and ‘Sustainable Livelihoods.’ The L&A programs that will develop under the strategic partnership will be integrated within broader programs implemented by members of the Consortium and with multiple-funding sources.

HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Bangladesh is implementing this pathway in Manda, Naogaon and Gaibanda.Over the next five years, the pathway will expand the capacity of union level federations of producer organizations and private service providers in policy influencing and advocacy for inclusive market with focus on production, service delivery and market access aspects. Based on our own experience with SEPO (co-implemented by HELVETAS) and PROOFS projects, and experience of our partner, HELVETAS, in other projects, such as LAN and Samriddhi, in Northern Bangladesh, we want to replicate/introduce a tripartite platform, where government extension agency, existing private service providers associations, traders association and federated producer groups come together at the sub-district level to discuss and tackle different issues, especially improved access to and delivery of diverse products and services, faced by farmers in respective sub-sectors. Through this pathway, ICCO will facilitate to organize public private initiative platforms through inclusion of public-sector agents, traders association, service providers association and federated producer organizations. The project will also build capacity of different market actors, so that they understand the concept of public private initiatives and have the necessary skills to effectively lobby and advocate for their needs.