TechnoServe
2014 Annual Report

 

Transforming Lives

TechnoServe believes in the power of private enterprise to transform lives.

We transform lives at the household level by working with smallholders like Mustaq Ahmed, a soy farmer in Rajasthan, India, to adopt sustainable farming practices, connect to reliable markets and increase families’ incomes.

We transform lives at the community level by working with entrepreneurs, like Fara Sánchez, the general manager of a busy restaurant in Guatemala, to access financing, grow thriving businesses and create vital local jobs. Or by working with producer groups, like the first coffee-farming cooperatives in South Sudan, to improve business practices, access premium international markets and bring new prosperity to entire communities.

And we transform lives at the country level by working with players across an entire market system, like the cashew producers and processors in northern Mozambique, to catalyze competitive industries that are improving the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families.

This is how TechnoServe helps create transformative, on-the-ground, market-based solutions to poverty. We focus on opportunities to effect change at scale, targeting improvements in market systems and building relationships between diverse partners to ensure self-sustaining economic growth.

Our 2014 Annual Report shows the impact we are making in the lives of enterprising people in 29 developing countries. These efforts are driving large-scale transformation and creating prosperity for individuals, families and communities for generations to come.

Paul Tierney Portrait Paul Tierney Signature

Paul E. Tierney, Jr.
Chairman of the Board

Will Warshauer Portrait Will Warshauer Signature

William Warshauer
President and CEO

How We Work:

TechnoServe specializes in business solutions to poverty. See how our market-based approach catalyzes industries and transforms lives.

Our Impact

In 2014, TechnoServe worked with enterprising people across 29 countries to build competitive farms businesses and industries. These efforts generated more than $61 million in financial benefits and touched the lives of 1.7 million people.

Explore our impact below

Financial
Benefits

How much better off are TechnoServe beneficiaries?

We measure our impact in terms of the increased revenue earned by farmers and businesses and the increased employee wages that are directly attributable to TechnoServe’s work. These financial benefits help families improve their lives.

$61,400,000

Increase in revenues and wages for farmers, businesses and employees

$37,880,000 increase in farmer revenues $16,540,000 increase in business revenues $6,980,000 increase in wages paid

Reach

Who benefited directly from our work?

We work to strengthen market systems so that smallholder farmers can sustainably increase their incomes. We help enterprising women and men build and expand businesses that provide economic opportunity. And we target industries with the potential to create jobs on a large scale in poor communities.

333,700

Farmers, businesses and employees benefited directly from TechnoServe’s work

32% of whom are women

325,200 farmers. 32% women. 3,000 businesses. 35% women-led. 5,610 new jobs. 61% women.

Economic growth is more sustainable when both women and men have full access to education, assets and finance. TechnoServe is committed to engaging and benefiting women in all of our programs. Our reach demonstrates a concerted effort to address gender gaps – and a call to do more in the future.

1.7 Million

men, women and children who benefited*

*based on an average of five people per family

Sustainability

Are these benefits lasting?

We hold ourselves accountable for creating sustainable impact, which means the benefits of each project continue long after TechnoServe’s involvement ends. We measure finance mobilized as one proxy for sustainability. Private sector investment in the farms, businesses and industries we support demonstrates the market’s confidence in these players and enables them to drive real and lasting change long after we’re gone.

In 2014, we helped mobilize:

$23,890,000

in financing to farmers and businesses

$11,210,000 financing to farmers $12,680,000 financing to businesses

In the Field

We focus on transformative opportunities with the potential to create large-scale lasting impact.

Click arrows to explore project highlights

Catalyzing a Competitive Cashew Industry in Mozambique

TechnoServe is working to develop the cashew sector along every stage of the value chain

Nearly destroyed after years of civil war and poor policy, the cashew industry in Mozambique saw a strong revival in the 2000s with vital support from TechnoServe. Today, more than 1 million households grow and sell cashews, and the processing sector has grown to employ more than 7,000 men and women.

Building on this success, TechnoServe is helping Mozambique’s cashew industry further enhance its competitiveness. Through MozaCajú, a three-year initiative supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we are working with farmers and processors to address challenges across the entire value chain and meet the growing international demand for premium cashews. In 2014, the project helped more than 13,000 smallholders to boost production levels, plant new trees and promote organic practices, while working with seven processing facilities to implement traceability systems, access financial services and broker purchasing contracts with international buyers. With targeted support across the whole market system, the Mozambican cashew industry is poised to reach its full potential. Learn more >>

Sweet Success in the Peruvian Jungle

Cocoa and coffee are providing opportunities for farmers to escape poverty and the drug trade

For thousands of farmers in Peru’s San Martín region, the coca leaf was a double-edged sword: they needed the money that the harvest brought to their homes, but they feared the violence that the drug trade brought to their communities. Now, with the assistance of TechnoServe, the U.S. Agency of International Development and other partners, they are finding alternative, safer sources of income: cocoa and coffee.

In 2014, the program worked with more than 10,000 farmers and 19 businesses throughout the supply chain. One of these businesses, a women’s cooperative called Mishky Cacao that makes gourmet chocolate from local cocoa, won an award last year at the prestigious Salon du Chocolat in Paris. Over five years, cocoa farmers participating in the program increased their yields by up to 53 percent and sold $10.5 million of cocoa beans directly to exporters. Learn more >>

Historic Firsts in South Sudan

TechnoServe and Nespresso are working to transform agriculture in the country

In July 2014, a truck carried South Sudanese coffee across the country’s border for the first time since independence. But the seeds of that milestone were planted in 2011, when TechnoServe and Nespresso committed to helping the world’s newest nation rebuild its coffee industry.

Doing so means working from the ground up, and TechnoServe has helped to establish the first three coffee cooperatives and wet mills in South Sudan, working with 300 farmers in 2014. The goal is to support the livelihoods of thousands of farmers and build a globally competitive agricultural export industry in a country that is heavily reliant on extractives for income. Learn more >>

Financial Inclusion Offers Ripe Rewards in Haiti

Loans secured through the Haiti Hope Project are helping mango farmers bring high quality fruit to market

Haitian farmers like Ydalma Placide tend to have extremely limited access to affordable credit, which could otherwise help them manage irregular cash flows, invest in their farms and engage in income-generating activities.

As part of the Haiti Hope Project – a five-year, $9.5 million public-private partnership – TechnoServe is helping Haitian mango farmers access the financial services they need to sustainably improve their incomes. In partnership with a local microfinance institution, the project has helped unlock $2.3 million in short-term, low-interest credit for more than 8,000 smallholder farmers, many of whom, like Ydalma, are building a credit history for the first time. The success of the loan program has attracted additional lender institutions, ensuring sustainable impact long after the program ends in 2015. That impact is significant: in 2014 alone, Haiti Hope worked with 21,000 farmers and helped 229 producer business groups generate $425,000 in revenue. Learn more >>

Unearthing Opportunity for Businesses and Workers

TechnoServe and Anglo American are working to transform mining communities around the world

Small and growing businesses provide most of the job opportunities in developing countries, so TechnoServe and Anglo American are working together to support them in five countries. The partnership focuses on providing customized training to entrepreneurs and job-seekers and empowering local businesses to supply Anglo American’s mining projects.

In 2014, businesses that began working with the partnership in Chile increased their sales by an average of 42 percent. In Peru, the project led directly to the creation of 571 new jobs in just six months. The partnership also began the work of identifying, recruiting and enrolling businesses in Botswana, Brazil and South Africa. Learn more >>