The Senegal Local Support Fund: Capacity Building for a Competitive Maize Value Chain
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The main focus of the USAID's Senegal Feed the Future (FTF) Strategy is on two agriculture value chains, maize and rice. These value chains are driven by sustained growth of domestic consumption including demand of poultry feed industries for maize. The expanding market is currently being satisfied primarily through highly competitive imports. The $48 million Senegal Economic Growth Project, launched in 2009, is the first active project in the USAID/Senegal FTF portfolio. A key project innovation is the $8.7 million Senegal Local Support Fund (SLSF) which is designed to exclusively support Senegalese entities including farmers, consolidators and processors, financial institutions, extension services, universities and government counterparts. Through an in-depth look at the activities to achieve large-scale results in the maize value chain, the presentation explored how the SLSF has been used to channel resources to the most innovative local partners. The imperative of out-competing maize imports also serves to illustrate the criteria that should be considered when approaching partnership and capacity building. The presentation closed with a discussion of the opportunities and challenges for channeling resources through local entities to achieve and sustain FTF goals.
Speakers
Andrew Keck
International Resources Group (IRG)
Andrew Keck is Chief of Party of the Senegal Economic Growth Project (PCE in French). He has 20 years of experience in project and analytical work in forestry, agriculture, natural resource management, and conservation finance. Most recently, as the Senior Manager for Policy Reform and Communications under the PCE, Mr. Keck led on-going policy reform initiatives to improve the business and investment climate and to develop more rational and private-sector driven fertilizer and seed supply systems. As the COP for the USAID-funded Sustainable Environmental and Forest Ecosystems Management (SEFEM) Project in Madagascar, he oversaw a comprehensive program of support for reform in Madagascar’s forestry sector and of the Ministry of Forests and Environment. In the realm of climate change, Keck led the effort to register and commercialize the carbon credits from a bundle of Clean Development Mechanism-registered projects in Sri Lanka as well as the design and start-up of a prominent conservation carbon offset program in Madagascar. Keck previously served as a natural resource management consultant to the World Bank for over seven years including authoring a Bank/GEF biodiversity portfolio review. Keck has lived in Madagascar and Senegal with short-term work in Egypt, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Mali. Keck holds a Masters degree in environmental management from Duke University and speaks fluent French.
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