Publication database

With funding from FAO, the Contract Farming Support Program (CFSP) of SNV tried to improve the smallholder farmers’ access to input and output markets as well as extension support through contract growing with private companies.
 

This indepth report pulls together existing research and 60 interviews with local and national impact investors to analyse the landscape for impact investing country by country in Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This includes over 81 non-DFI impact investors and 26 development finance institutions with over 8,000 disclosed investments.

This paper is one of 13 country studies on access to energy in Sub-Saharan Africa. It describes the current situation for off-grid solutions in Zimbabwe and identifies key policy measures to enable accelerated access to electricity.

SNV was engaged by the Danish International Development Organisation (DANIDA) to implement the Rural Agriculture Revitalisation Project- Commercialisation of Smallholder Farmers (RARP CSF), an initiative which seek to facilitate commercialisation of smallholder agriculture  with a view to promote improved household incomes, employment and food security. The project aim was to reach 280,000 smallholder farming households throughout all eight rural provinces in Zimbabwe. The study should serve as a guide for the Government in the formulation of policies that support the development of viable smallholder farmer based horticulture value chains in Zimbabwe.

This study sought to enable SNV-Zimbabwe identify and understand the groundnuts value chain dynamics regarding actors (from farmers to firms), channels, markets trends, viability and production and consumption trends. 

Such an understanding would inform SNV’s overall exploration of ways to support groundnuts production and productivity through, inter alia, enhancing private sector participation and increasing the number of smallholder farmers pursuing groundnuts production on a commercial basis under the RARP CSF Oilseeds component and for the benefit of other agencies and actors who wish to intervene in this sub-sector.
 

The Zimbabwean dairy subsector currently remains strained by a serious shortage of skilled and experienced technical staff as well as by other constraints. This study makes recommendations to address these issues.

This feasibility study investigates the possibility for the implementation of a national domestic biogas programme in Zimbabwe which could improve the quality of life for rural households by reducing indoor air pollution and daily workload, satisfy their daily domestic energy requirements and reduce the unsustainable consumption of household fuel wood. A conservative estimate of the implementation potential for domestic biodigesters in the nine provinces is 65.000 units.

This report discusses the foundations of business management and governance; the business control structure; and the benefits of proper management and governance systems for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). It provides case studies and outlines findings from a survey which sought to understand the acceptance and application of management and governance systems among SMEs in East Africa.

This case study describes how Agriseeds Ltd, a relatively small Zimbabwean seed company aimed to diversify its outgrower base; and how SNV assisted Agriseeds to develop the extension model to ensure efficient and effective training as well as the design of the farmer selection criteria, farmer contracts, baseline survey instruments and the project implementation plan.