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Department of Financial & Management Studies (DeFiMS)

Mr Jason Donovan

BSc (Georgia), MSc (Massachusetts-Amherst)

Overview

Staff Silhouette
Name:
Mr Jason Donovan
Email address:
Thesis title:
Value Chain Approaches and Smallholders: Issues of asset building, resilience and tradeoffs
Year of Study:
2007 Entry
Internal Supervisors

External Supervisors

Dietmar Stoian (CATIE, Costa Rica)

Biography

Rural Business Development, Poverty Reduction, Latin America

PhD Research

The term ‘value chain approach’ (VCA) is relatively new in development discourse. It refers to private or public-sector led initiatives that seek to generate ‘win-win’ outcomes between smallholders ¬- typically considered as a proxy for the rural poor - and downstream chain actors (medium and large-scale processors and buyers). Despite large investments in VCA, it remains unclear whether they have significant impact on business or chain performance, natural resource management, or pro-poor development. The key questions that guide this research are the following:

  • Under what conditions do VCA help rural households to climb out of poverty?
  • To what extent do rural households invest and build assets (re-invest) in building sustainable links with value chains?
  • How do tradeoffs between increased investments in value chain participation and household maintenance (gender, food security), resilience (livelihood security, social capital) and the environment influence investment decisions?
  • What features of the political-legal environment promote (discourage) investments and asset accumulation by rural households, buyers, and other actors among a given value chain?

PhD Publications

  • Stoian, D. & J. Donovan. 2008. Capacidades Empresariales para el Desarrollo de Empresas Forestales Comunitarias. En Sabogal, S., García, de Jong, W., C., Lauman, B., Pokorny, B. & Stoian, D. (eds.) Manejo Forestal Comunitario en América tropical: Experiencias, Lecciones Aprendidas y Retos para el Futuro, CIFOR, Bogor Barat, Indonesia.
  • Donovan, J., D. Stoian & N. Poole. 2008 Global Review of Rural Community Enterprises: The Long and Winding Road to Creating Viable Businesses, and Potential Shortcuts. Report prepared for Ford Foundation, Johannesburg, South Africa.
  • Donovan, J. (ed.). 2007. Small and Medium Forest Enterprise Development for Poverty Reduction: Opportunities and Challenges in Globalizing Markets. CATIE Technical Series #12. CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica.
  • Donovan, J., D. Stoian, D. Macqueen & S. Grouwels. 2006. The Business Side of Sustainable Forest Management: Development of Small and Medium Forest Enterprises for Poverty Reduction. Natural Resource Perspective 104, ODI, London.

PhD Conferences

  • Donovan, J., D. Stoian & N. Poole. Development of Rural Community Enterprises for Poverty Reduction: Assessing Potential for Poverty Reduction. Presentation at Ford Foundation CRD Worldwide Meeting, December 2-6, 2007, Lombok, Indonesia.
  • Donovan, J., D. Stoian & N. Poole. Development of Rural Community Enterprises for Poverty Reduction: A Global Review of Critical Success Factors. Presentation at Tropentag Conference, October 9-11, 2007, Witzenhausen, Germany.
  • Stoian, D. & J. Donovan. Value Chain Development from a Livelihoods Perspective: A Multi-chain Approach for Coffee and Cacao Producing Households in Central America. Presentation at Tropentag Conference, October 9-11, 2007, Witzenhausen, Germany.

PhD Affiliations

Researcher and development specialist at CATIE, a regional agricultural research centre based in Costa Rica