Supply-chain management and agro-enterprise development: CIAT's approach in Southeast Asia

The Rural Agroenterprise Development Project of the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) has taken a territorial approach to equitable, market-oriented, agriculturally based development in the rural tropics, with the objectives of poverty reduction and environmental sustainability. The four-stage methodology that has evolved, based on experiences in South America, Africa and, more recently, South East Asia, is described. Examples of this approach from South America and Vietnam for the root-crop starch subsector are presented, along with details of a new project in Vietnam and Laos which aims to adapt the process to the situation of these two South East Asian countries.