Publication database

Based on data from 132 GDC members, as well as evidence and insights gathered by the GDC over the last three years, this report explores four major trends in the LMD sector: digitalisation, access to finance, product diversification and consumer financing. Overall, the report finds that, despite significant challenges – not least Covid-19 – the LMD sector is impactful, resilient and increasingly professional. External support, including access to finance, is key to unlocking LMDs’ full potential for impact at the last mile.

Since 2013, the G4AW programme has been supporting 25 partnerships in 15 countries in Africa and South-East Asia that have taken up the challenge to develop digital solutions, using satellite and geodata to improve food and income security at smallholder food producer level. The major lessons learned from the programme (about 8 years) are summarized in this new lessons learned publication. It focuses on the business-related decisions and the steps taken to move towards a sustainable business model and scale to other services and regions.

This report offers practical guidance to last mile distribution (LMD) companies seeking digital solutions that can help them to scale up their activities. It focusses on five key areas that will enable them to better engage with digital solution providers: understanding how LMDs can benefit from digitalisation, improving accessibility, financing IT, understanding how to integrate different digital solutions, and helping digital service providers to enter new markets.

This snapshot report details how prioritising green and social enterprises delivers triple returns - economic, social and environmental – in both short and long terms. It analyses the status quo, gaps and potentials of green and social enterprises as well as the SME support landscape in different areas and locations. Building on in-depth SEED-conducted interviews with enterprises and enterprise support providers, green recovery contributions and support opportunities were identified to improve the existing support offers for green and social enterprises in a green recovery context.

This guide lists digital tools that deliver remote data collection, information, or training for farmers and farmer organizations. It assesses them on five criteria: demand, value addition, costs, transcending inefficiencies, and interoperability. 

This document is a strategic guidebook developed by Argidius Foundation and Dalberg Advisors to support business development services (BDS) providers to successfully adopt digital practices and tools. It explores current practices and opportunities across the landscape to guide BDS providers in using digital technologies to provide services to entrepreneurs in an effective and inclusive way.

There is a strong need for increased adoption of sustainable agricultural practices to bring the food from farm to fork while addressing three major challenges: feeding a growing population, providing a livelihood for farmers, and environmental protection. This is where decentralised renewable energy (DRE) technologies must play a key role. Moreover, as innovation in DRE-powered agricultural equipment and appliances steam ahead, their technical and commercial viability will improve further. Based on best practices from the 15 case studies, this publication makes recommendations for public and private stakeholders.

This report highlights opportunities for the private sector in Digital Climate Advisory Services (DCAS), including how to implement financially sustainable business models and recommendations for business. DCMS offer a huge opportunity to increase the productivity and resilience of smallholders and support sustainable food systems. 

This article attempts to move the needle on extant inclusive business discourse by delineating, conceptually, what it means to be(come) an inclusive business. By drawing on the rich literature on inclusive growth, sustainable business models, social enterprise and hybrid organizations, it offers revised definitions of inclusive businesses and inclusive business models. The article argues, amongst others, that inclusive businesses necessarily prioritize value creation over value capture and should be judged based on the net value they create for ‘income-constrained’ groups. It furthermore proposes how the boundaries of entrepreneurial responsibility can be delimited, with implications for how sustainable business models more generally should be designed.

This white paper seeks to articulate the impacts of connectivity and propose a framework of financial, social and economic key performance indicators for the last-mile connectivity (LMC) sector, in order to ultimately drive investments in the sector. The purpose of the framework is to illuminate impact pathways that link investments in LMC enterprises to positive development outcomes.