UK-Ghana Partnership for Jobs & Economic Transformation (JET), Mid-term review, Ghana (2024)

I am part of small team pulled together by ASI to undertake an annual review and mid-term review of JET for FCDO). JET is FCDO's flagship project in Ghana aiming to encourage signiticant levels of foreign direct investment, targeting specifed sectors, and building local supply chains which will, it is hoped, in turn lead to significant levels of job creation.

BRAC Livelihoods Enhancement through Agricultural Development, Tanzania (2012)

BRAC is an international, not for profit, development organisation founed in Bangladesh in 1972 and working to support those suffering inequality and poverty to create opportunities and realise human potential. BRAC Maendeleo Tanzania had established a programme known as Livelihoods Enhancement through Agricultural Development, supported by DFID (now FCDO), focused on poultry and maize sectors and adopting a market systems development approach. IGA was initially commissioned, in partnership with Springfield, to undertake a review. IGA was then commissioned to prepare the business case for DFID to continue to provide support and indeed to expand the programme.

Innovations against poverty (2011-2013)

Low-income markets can offer significant business opportunities. Indeed, Micahel Porter has argued that some of the areas in the US that house the poorest people actually have the highest aggregate level of disposable income - because the density of housing is much higher than in areas that house the more affluent. Similarly, in developing countries, businesses offering the right products and services at the right price can be competitive and profitable. Innovations Against Poverty is funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency to support inclusive business models that benefit low-income populations whilst delivering commercial benefit.

This was, for a time, managed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and, during that time, I was a member of the assessment team, reviewing applications and preparing funding recommendations.

Business Innovation Facility (2010-2012)

The Business Innovation Facility was funded by DFID (now FCDO) and managed by PwC. Its objective was to support private sector businesses to apply their core business activities and skills in a transformative and scalable manner that would enhance growth and wealth creation, reduce poverty and help meet the MMillennium Development Goals. This was undertaken through (a) offering technical assistance, (b) brokering partnerships and relationships, and 9c) creating a knowledge hub.

I participated as a member of advisory committee receiving recommendations from the team, reviewing applications and appraisals, offering advice and making recommendations on which projects to support.

SME Competitiveness Facility, Tanzania (2008)

The SME Competitiveness Facility was part of a donor funded support programme for small businesses in Tanzania. After five successful years, agreement was reached to refund it for a further period of five years from July 2008. The vision of SCF II, as it was known, was to enable Tanzanian food processors and marketers to access local and international markets on a sustainable basis. Its purpose was to provide food processing and marketing SMEs throughout the value chain with services that enable them to add value to food commodities and access international food product markets. Ultimately, it hoped to increase production, sales and exports of food products and thus jobs and income leading to improved livelihoods for entrepreneurs.

Irwin Grayson Associates was commissioned by SCF, on behalf of DANIDA, together with a local consultant, Otto Ringia, to prepare a monitoring and evaluation framework, manual and forms to ensure that the new programme had an M & E system integrated into its management information systems right from the start.

Maendeleo Agricultural Technology Fund (2008)

The Maendeleo Agricultural Technology Fund (MATF) was an initiative of Farm Africa that operated across Kenya, Tanzania & Uganda and managed from tehir Nairobi office. The goal of MATF was "to improve the livelihoods of rural and peri-urban communities in East Africa through agricultural innovations while enhancing productivity of natural resources". Its purpose was "to generate and promote socially and economically profitable agricultural models that could be replicated in other areas for wider impact". It was launched in 2002 with funding from Gatsby Charitable Foundation (GCF), one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts and Rockefeller Foundation. By 2008, grant support from GCF was being channelled through the Kilimo Trust. Kilimo Trust had started operations in East Africa in 2005 as a research entity and grant-giving organisation to support research that connected science with farmers and was initially itself funded by GCF.

IGA, in partnership with Annabel Jackson Associates, was commissioned by Kilimo Trust to undertake an evaluation of the performance and impact of MATF which, by the time of the evaluation, had provided 66 grants to 55 projects.

MATF had been evaluated on many occasions and, at least at project level, appeared to have been pretty successful; Kilimo Trust was keen, however, "to evaluate MATF's success in spreading the lessons of the project more widely and to explore the extent to which MATF might have achieved transformational impact". Overall, we were very positive about the programme and teh difference that it was able to make to small holder farmers and herders.

Gatsby Chraitable Foundation African Trusts (2006)

Many years ago, the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, one of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, has set up business support initiatives in Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. I was commissioned to support each of them to review and revise their strategies. I subsequently wrote a paper to share some of the learning.

Financial Deepening Challenge Fund (2005)

Launched in 2000, the £18.5m Financial Deepening Challenge Fund (FDCF) built on recognition by the Department for International Development (now FCDO) that the private sector could contribute to poverty alleviation and development. During its lifetime, the fund provided grants of £50,000-£1m to share risks with private sector firms in a competitive and transparent manner for projects which met clearly defined criteria reflecting DFID’s priorities to improve access to financial services. DFID hoped that the fund would help to change the behaviour of private companies – both those who received support and also others wanting to replicate the successes observed. Today, there is much talk of the corporates serving the ‘bottom of the pyramid’. In creating FDCF when it did, DFID showed commendable foresight.

In partnership with David Porteous, a US based consultant specialising in economic development and evaluation, I undertook the output to purpose review jointly funded by DFID and the Gates Foundation. Some of the recommendations helped to inform the design of DFID's Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund.

European Bank for Reconstruction & Development: Business Advisory Service (1999)

EBRD's Business Advisory Service (BAS) was providing subsidised consultancy support to small and growing businesses in 18 transition countries in central and eastern Europe. David Irwin acted as a sub-contractor to Capital Representatives to undertake a detailed evaluation in six countries of which I focused on the performance in Montenegro and Latvia, including undertaking a mission to each of those two countries.

Business Advisory and Extension Service, Zimbabwe (1994)

Following the end of the programme of institution strengthening, David Irwin was commissioned to undertake a detailed review of BESA focusing on its existing services and preapring detailed recommendations for additional training and other institutional support. This work was funded by what was then the UK Government's Overseas Development Administration.