MANAGEMENT TRAINING: Managing for growth

Many rural economic actors receive technical and other business development support embedded informally in their commercial transactions. These services tend to be very basic and only help with day-to-day operations, such as information on quantity and quality, pricing, and the provision of short-term finance. While not harmful, this support often delivers more benefits the providers––often value chain actors with market leverage over the recipients.

There is very little support from these providers on even simple but effective management techniques such as keeping accurate and separate financial records, much less strategic support such as market research, product development, and market linkage that improve performance over the long term.

A full suite of management training is too costly to sustain and not always appropriate for the needs of the recipients. ACCESS’s approach is to identify the key skills that rural economic actors needs to scale up, and develop innovative, cost-effective ways to deliver that support.