From Farm to Market to Table:  
                A Value Chain Approach 
                        The DFID Perspective:  
               Making Markets Work for the Poor 
                                    (M4P) 
                                         
                           Alan Gibson, consultant 
                                        
     1 
          Why?                           M4P 
                             1. Logic/rationale - serious about systems? 
  ‘Real’ development is                   
             
     about scale and         2.  Analysis – causes not symptoms? 
       sustainability                     
                             3. Future picture – incentives and capacities? 
                             4. Intervention – good practice principles? 
   And therefore about       5. Assessment – system-level focus? 
     changing market 
         systems                 Achievements? 
                              Scale     Sustainability 
   What’s different about the approach? 
            Conventional                                                  M4P 
         What problems do                                      What problems do 
            people/firms                                          people/firms 
                have?                                                 have? 
                    
                                                                 Why isn’t their 
                                                              market environment 
                                                                    providing  
                                                              solutions to these? 
                   
         How can I help to 
            solve these?                                     … Why isn’t the 
                                                              market system 
                                                          working for the poor?  
  How’s it going to work in the future (post-project)? 
         Who does?                                             Who pays? 
                                                                        
                                                                        
                  Incentives                             Capacities 
                   (want to?)                              (able to?) 
                                                                
                                                                
   “People respond to incentives; all the rest is just commentary”  
      4    Steve Landsburg, The Armchair Economist