Document Type: Project Design and Implementation

The Tanzania SERA Project will assist both the Government of the Republic of Tanzania (GoT) and the private sector in enabling a broad-based, sustainable transformation of the agricultural sector through policy reform. The project will focus on the current policy and regulatory environment for agriculture—from the transactional “hot” topics to the needed strategic foundational changes— leaving a legacy of empowered local institutions, capable of leading informed dialogue on policy and regulatory issues in the agriculture sector and advocating for the necessary changes.

The vision for this project is twofold: to improve the policy and regulatory environment for agriculture growth and to build a group of public sector institutions, advocacy organizations, and individuals capable of performing rigorous policy analysis in support of evidence-based advocacy and policy reform. At the conclusion of the project, we expect USAID will leave behind a legacy of enabling the GoT to initiate, develop and utilize evidence-based research in policy decisions and implementation, empowering local research and private sector advocacy groups to more effectively use analysis and strategic communications to lobby for change, and building national partnerships that create consensus around agriculture policy and monitor the impacts of policy.

The SERA project will focus all activities around priorities identified in collaboration with the Southern Agriculture Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) initiative.

Since 2014, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has supported efforts to increase tenure security in rural customary lands in Zambia through the documentation of customary land boundaries for households and communities in Chipata and Petauke Districts of Eastern Province through the Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) program. This work, led in the field by the Chipata District Land Alliance and the Petauke District Land Alliance, has resulted in customary authorities delivering land certificates across over 700 communities and 12,000 land parcels in Eastern Province. Elements of the methodology have also been applied by Frankfurt Zoological Society in Muchinga Province, and by Mwembeshi Nature Conservation Society in peri-urban chiefdoms outside of Lusaka. Spatial data on land use, development infrastructure, and conflicts have been generated for large areas of these chiefdoms and can be used as the basis of future planning efforts by traditional chiefs, with the cooperation of community members and district government. Furthermore, it is expected that there will be investments to improve land use planning in Eastern Province as part of a forthcoming World Bank grant and loan mechanism associated with the Zambia Integrated Forest Landscape Program. It is in this context that this methodology for land use and development planning has been produced.

In simple terms, land use planning is about making decisions on a sustainable form of land use in rural areas and the initiation of the appropriate options and measures for implementation and monitoring. However, in the context of Zambia’s rural customary areas, it makes most sense to integrate land use planning with broader development planning, which ultimately could form the basis of a Chiefdom Development Plan. Zambia has a number of legally mandated planning processes; for example, from the Urban and Regional Planning Act of 2015 and associated with the Wildlife Act of 2015. This methodology does not attempt to replace either of these, but rather provides a framework for rural planning that may feed into government planning processes when they reach these areas. Furthermore, this effort focuses on planning within chiefdom boundaries, because the program has worked most closely with village headpersons, advisors, and chiefs, for whom chiefdom and village boundaries are most relevant for day-to-day management and decisions. If this effort is carried out by government planners, they may wish to use the ward or district levels for planning. While not precisely the same boundaries, chiefdoms are largely confined to individual districts, and ward boundaries often fall within individual chiefdoms. With the recognition that in rural customary areas chiefs are often the main source of authority, there is a need to balance engagement with customary authorities and their jurisdiction alongside the desire of the state to work in government administrative boundaries.

This methodology was developed based on past USAID land use planning efforts. It anticipates using a combination of primary and secondary methods of data collection. It is open to different levels of data collection, from basic surveys that can cover five to ten villages in a day to intensive multi-day visits to hundreds of villages. Stakeholder discussions are required with traditional leaders and advisors, as well as with community members themselves. Key informant interviews are also necessary across a range of government institutions at the district and provincial levels. Structured data collection from the field should form the basis of feeding bottom-up information into ambitious but realistic land use and development plans. The use of spatial information to facilitate dialogue and decision-making and to allocate resources is at the heart of this methodology.

In recognition of the importance of mangroves and coastal forests to coastal resilience and livelihoods, Vietnam has prioritized their planting and protection over recent years. These coastal forest areas are extremely valuable for commercial and subsistence uses across Asia, particularly related to aquaculture and net/catch/gleaning fisheries. Managing mangroves presents different challenges than managing terrestrial or upland forests given the unique tidal dynamics, forest architecture, and livelihood needs. Due to the range of overlapping interests in mangrove areas, they are particularly suited to co-management arrangements that bring together government, private sector, and community stakeholders to develop and implement mutually beneficial management agreements. For Vietnam, this bottom-up, participatory approach represents a relatively new model for resource management. This report examines pilot experience with co-management approaches to mangrove management in Vietnam, and also highlights experiences from other Asian countries including India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. Report findings underscore the following:

Broadly speaking, most community members support mangrove conservation and understand their importance for protecting infrastructure and farms, supporting productivity, enabling food security, providing income-generation opportunities across communities, and addressing climate change adaptation and mitigation needs. However, aligning household incentives to mangrove management is an almost impossible challenge. Given the donor-driven and project-based agenda for these pilots, most have lacked a long-term financing mechanism. Even in cases where the private sector has been engaged with price premiums, incentives have not been adequate to compete with alternative land uses.

Confusing and overlapping authority among different government agencies for managing mangrove areas can result in open-access situations. In many cases, no single authority is responsible for ensuring that coastal management rules are harmonized within or across jurisdictions. This calls for improved spatial planning and coordination both among sectors and from national to commune
levels.
Co-management as a process permits a valuable two-way communication between government and communities that allows for each to better understand each other’s needs and constraints. This can be an important step to build trust and is a particularly new approach in the Vietnamese context. Individualized management agreements that are devolved to certain members of communities or particular user groups can lead to the exclusion of some individuals or other user groups who have overlapping use rights.

While mangrove co-management agreements and institutional pilots can provide valuable momentum for communities, they also require formal or legal recognition by government, which can be slow to materialize. Where authority for rule development and implementation largely lies in the government’s hands, community members often lack the enthusiasm and interest to support mangrove conservation. All too often, contracts issued by the government are not clear on benefit-sharing details or dispute resolution systems.

In sum, mangrove co-management institutional structure and rules need to be designed to suit the local context. All too often, the focus has been on mangrove planting and protection, which is a tree-oriented perspective. Instead, a mangrove ecosystem perspective needs to be facilitated so that the linkages between various types of livelihood systems and the health of the ecosystem become more prominent. This underscores the need for assessments of community needs through the design of strategies for mangrove management and protection that include a participatory coastal spatial planning approach and adaptive co-management.

The Feed the Future Tanzania Land Tenure Assistance (LTA) activity is an integral part of USAID’s broad initiatives in the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). The project will be implemented over four years and provide assistance to local level authorities in the delivery of land administration services under the village land laws and acts of Tanzania.

The LTA will develop a comprehensive system and procedures for participatory, low-cost first registration/regularization of land tenure and long-term management of land transactions, incorporating the use of mobile technology (Mobile Application for Secure Tenure MAST). This system will be replicable, scalable and sustainable for future implementation by the Tanzanian Ministry of Lands.

The development of this comprehensive system will support LTA’s three objectives:

1. Assist target districts and villages in completing the land use planning process and deliver Certificate Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) through the use of MAST open source mobile technology (and related procedures).
2. Build capacity of village and district land governance institutions, and individual villagers, to complete the land use planning and CCRO process, effectively manage land resources, respect women’s land rights, and build agriculture-related business skills through education and awareness raising activities.
3. Raise awareness of the MAST technology (and related procedures) within the GOT, civil society, academia and private sector, with the goal of increasing uptake of the MAST technology (and related procedures) on a national level.

The work will be undertaken through four activities:

Activity 1: Assist villages and District administrations in completing the land use planning process and delivering CCROs in select districts and villages

Activity 2: Educate and build capacity of village land governance institutions and individual villagers to complete the land use planning and CCRO process, effectively manage land resources, respect women’s, youth and pastoralist’s land rights and build agriculture-related business skills.

Activity 3: Educate and build capacity of district-level land governance institutions in Mbeya Region to complete the land use planning and CCRO process, effectively manage land resources, respect women’s, youth and pastoralist’s land rights and build agriculture-related business skills.

Activity 4: Build capacity to use the MAST application throughout the SAGCOT and Nationally

This M&E Plan is a performance management tool designed to be used by the LTA management team, implementers and donors to assess and report progress towards achieving the stated activity objectives. It is a critical tool for planning, managing, and documenting performance data. The LTA M&E Plan serves to:

• Define specific performance indicators at the impact, outcome and output level, determine baselines and set targets;
• Specify data management processes as a reference for LTA staff and as a requirement to meet quality standards for data management;
• Specify data quality processes to meet USAID quality standards;
• Incorporate relevant data collection requirements into activities to meet both USAID reporting obligations and management information needs.

The M&E Plan contributes to the effectiveness of the performance monitoring system by assuring that comparable data will be collected on a regular and timely basis. Using the M&E Plan to sufficiently document indicator definitions, sources, and methods of data collection increases the likelihood that comparable data will be collected throughout the project period of performance. The M&E Plan supports reliable data collection by documenting the frequency and schedule of data collection and assigning responsibilities for data collection, verification, and quality assurance and reporting.

The Feed the Future Tanzania Land Tenure Assistance (LTA) Communications Plan provides the framework for delivering targeted project communications to key stakeholders throughout the implementation period. The LTA Communications Plan will support the achievement of project goals and objectives through stakeholder awareness, engagement and capacity building, as well as providing the information needed for USAID project monitoring and reporting.

USAID has contracted DAI to implement the Feed the Future Tanzania Land Tenure Assistance (LTA) activity as an integral part of USAID’s broad initiatives in the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). The project will be implemented over four years and provide assistance to local level authorities in the delivery of land tenure services under the village land laws and acts of Tanzania. The LTA commenced in December 2015, and as of May 2016 has established operations in Iringa District and completed significant inception activities.

The LTA has three objectives:

1. Assist villages in completing the land use planning process and delivering Certificate Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) through the use of open source mobile technology (Mobile Application for Secure Tenure MAST);
2. Build capacities of village and district land governance institutions, and individual villagers, to complete land use planning and the process of issuance of CCROs to village land owners and to effectively manage land resources, respect women’s land rights and build agriculture-related skills in land use optimization and valuation, business, entrepreneurship and negotiation through education and awareness raising activities;
   and
3. Raise awareness of the MAST technology within the GOT, civil society, academia and private sector, with the goal of increasing uptake of the MAST technology on a national level.

The work will be undertaken through four activities:

Activity 1: Assist villages and District administrations in completing the land use planning process and delivering CCROs in select districts and villages

Activity 2: Educate and build capacity of village land governance institutions and individual villagers to complete the land use planning and CCRO process, effectively manage land resources, respect women’s, youth and pastoralist’s land rights and build agriculture-related business skills.

Activity 3: Educate and build capacity of district-level land governance institutions in Mbeya Region to complete the land use planning and CCRO process, effectively manage land resources, respect women’s, youth and pastoralist’s land rights and build agriculture-related business skills.

Activity 4: Build capacity to use the MAST application throughout the SAGCOT and Nationally

COMMUNICATIONS PLAN OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the LTA Communications Plan are:

1. Build stakeholder awareness, engagement and buy-in regarding the process and benefits of effective well managed land administration particularly from Government of Tanzania at all levels, and from all stakeholder groups to ensure sustainability
2. Promote public education and awareness about land tenure and property rights, with a special focus on women, youth, and other vulnerable groups
3. Develop capacity of Tanzanian communities in more effective land utilization skills, to maximize the benefits of land registration through improved capacity for investment, negotiation and transactions for access to land.
4. Disseminate information about project activities and results to all stakeholder groups with interests in further development and roll-out, including information required for USAID monitoring and reporting
5. Develop effective scalable communications materials and models and provide training to stakeholders in such a way that ensures sustainability (ownership, affordability, adaptability)
6. Across all objectives, ensure awareness that LTA support is made possible by Feed the Future and USAID, and is “From the American People”

The Feed the Future Tanzania Land Tenure Assistance (LTA) activity as an integral part of USAID’s broad initiatives in the Southern
Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT). The project will be implemented over four years and provide assistance to local level authorities in the delivery of land tenure services under the village land laws and acts of Tanzania. The LTA commenced in December 2015, and as of May 2016 has established operations in Iringa District and completed inception activities.

The LTA has three objectives:

1. Assist villages in completing the land use planning process and delivering Certificate Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) through the use of open source mobile technology (Mobile Application for Secure Tenure MAST);
2. Build capacities of village and district land governance institutions, and individual villagers, to complete land use planning and the process of issuance of CCROs to village land owners and to effectively manage land resources, respect women’s land rights and build agriculture-related skills in land use optimization and valuation, business, entrepreneurship and negotiation through education and awareness raising activities; and
3. Raise awareness of the MAST technology within the GOT, civil society, academia and private sector, with the goal of increasing uptake of the MAST technology on a national level.

The work will be undertaken through four activities:

Activity 1: Assist villages and District administrations in completing the land use planning process and delivering CCROs in select districts and villages

Activity 2: Educate and build capacity of village land governance institutions and individual villagers to complete the land use planning and CCRO process, effectively manage land resources, respect women’s, youth and pastoralist’s land rights and build agriculture-related business skills.

Activity 3: Educate and build capacity of district-level land governance institutions in Mbeya Region to complete the land use planning and CCRO process, effectively manage land resources, respect women’s, youth and pastoralist’s land rights and build agriculture-related business skills.

Activity 4: Build capacity to use the MAST application throughout the SAGCOT and Nationally

USAID POLICY CONTEXT

The USAID/Tanzania’s Country Development Cooperation Strategy, USAID’s Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy, and the Youth and Development policy to strengthen youth programming and participation underpin and inform the overall approach and strategy to addressing gender issues under LTA. In 2012, USAID adopted a Youth in Development Policy to strategically support, protect, prepare, and engage young people in achieving development outcomes. The Youth in Development and Gender Equality and Female Empowerment recognize that gender norms determine the way households allocate resources to sons and daughters, through decisions about boys’ or girls’ education, where they work, and how they spend their time.

LTA implementation has the potential to substantively impact the role of women, both in the administration of land and realization of their rights. This will contribute significantly to key USAID impacts, including:

• Reducing gender disparities in access to, control over and benefit from resources, wealth, opportunities and services–economic, social, political, and cultural;
• Reducing gender-based violence (GBV) and mitigating its harmful effects on individuals and communities; and
• Increasing the capability of women and girls to realize their rights, determine their life outcomes, and influence decision-making in households, communities, and societies
• The overarching objective of the LTA program is to nurture and promote an equitable system in land administration. Starting with the Gender and Youth indicators outlined in DAI’s Technical Proposal, LTA will work with the COR to ensure custom indicators and disaggregation of all relevant indicators meets requirements as set out in the policy. Impacts on women and youth will be monitored and reported, allowing progressive learning and adaptation of program interventions to maximize empowerment of women and youth.

In all aspects of program implementation, LTA commits to being proactive in ensuring women, youth, and vulnerable groups are an integral part of the process.

Objectives

For LTA to achieve the goal of equity in the land administration system, it must effectively engage and mobilize all members of the communities (men, women, village elders, youth and vulnerable groups, such as the disabled and landless) in which it will operate. Inclusion must be in realizing and understanding rights and the overall process through which these are delivered and maintained. This includes participating in, and being beneficiaries of public outreach, parcel demarcation and adjudication, title issuance and subsequent registry maintenance.

The LTA contract specifically mentions the need to ensure women’s and youth rights are taken into account in all aspects of implementation. The purpose of LTA is to identify and clarify rights in land, and formalize these. Successful inclusion of women and other potentially marginalized groups hinges on ensuring implementation of equitable procedures for all with full participation and inclusiveness.

This Gender and Vulnerable Groups Plan presents a summary of the practical measures the LTA will adopt achieve these goals – translating evidence into action, to empower, protect, and foster participation for women, youth and vulnerable groups through LTA implementation.

In advance of field operations, it provides LTA’s guiding principles and key definitions to frame the approach, and presents a number of actions and safeguards to be adopted.

The purpose of this monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan is to inform and guide the project team and project stakeholders in collecting and managing high-quality performance information and using it for project management and communication of results.

This plan covers Year 2 of the Burundi Policy Reform Program, from October 2008 through September 2009. In Year 2, as required by Change Order 0001 and finalized in modification 3 to the task order, the program will address Congressional earmarks on water, women’s leadership, women in development, and victims of torture (VOT), as well as activities related to anti-corruption and electoral policy reform. Although the policy topics will change from those addressed in Year 1, the project will continue to serve as a facilitator for “building constructive relationships between the executive, civil society, and the media through support for participatory policy processes.”

Year 2 work is organized according to four components as follows:

• 5.1: Water Resources Management
• 5.2: Women’s Leadership and Development
• 5.3: Victims of Torture
• 5.4: Elections and Political Processes

Organizational Structure

The Chief of Party will lead the elections and political processes component and will be supported by technical leads for other components. Specifically, our water policy lead will be Albert Mbonerane, women in development/leadership lead will be Juliette Kavabuha, and victims of torture lead will be Gaudence Kabuyenge. Gerard Nzohaboha will have responsibility for victims of torture Tasks 5.3.3 and 5.3.4 as well as cross cutting communications support. The M&E and reporting tasks will be handled by the M&E specialist, Jeremie Nkunzimana, with oversight by the Training, Reporting, Administration, and Grants Manager, Karen Ottoni.

Approach to Monitoring, Evaluation, Analysis, and Communication

Monitoring and evaluation will play a critical role in understanding, demonstrating, and communicating the results of the Burundi Policy Reform Program and in guiding the management of the contract. The project is a high profile project for USAID Burundi and we fully appreciate the need to show visible results in Year 2. In order to ensure successful outcomes, we will use our M&E system as a management tool to monitor the progress of our planned activities and to serve as an early warning system to alert our team of activities that are not progressing as planned or that are not having the intended result. In this way, our team will be using analysis of M&E data to strategically guide project decision-making and resource allocation.

Accordingly, our approach to M&E is guided by the following principles:

Clear connection between tasks, expected results, and indicators. During the year, we will be carrying out three to five tasks under each component, as required by the Year 2 scope of work. Each of these tasks is linked to an expected result. In developing the M&E plan, we and USAID have worked collaboratively to agree on indicators to match each expected result. Thus, there is a clear connection between the task, the result of the task, and how we will measure accomplishment of those results.

Participatory. Performance management is most effective when it involves the entire project team and relevant stakeholders. Technical staff members will be involved in data collection, interpretation, and in using M&E information. Since they will be in direct contact with our beneficiaries and data sources, they are well placed to efficiently collect and verify M&E data. It is also important to get our sub-awardees’ buy-in to the anticipated project results and relevant indicators, and include them as partners in collecting and disseminating information about project results. This also serves the purpose of strengthening their capacity in performance monitoring after the project has ended.

Efficient and effective. Our experience from Year 1 has been useful to streamline our systems of measurement so that we are collecting and reporting on the information that is most directly useful for performance management and that meets USAID’s reporting needs. We have sought to decrease the management burden and cost while meeting our information needs, by standardizing our data collection forms, and will be attentive in other ways to do so.

Communications—both with USAID and external to the project—are vital in performance management. In communicating the project’s results we will seek to share information in a transparent manner that will advance learning and accurately demonstrate results. We will communicate project results as jointly achieved by USAID, the government, and organizations that we’ll be working with, and share performance information with local partners. We will also be careful to communicate limitations in data quality, if they exist, and communicate achievements and attribute results honestly.

This work plan covers Year 2 of the Burundi Policy Reform Program, from October 2008 through September 2009. In Year 2, as required by Change Order 0001, the program will address Congressional earmarks on water and women’s leadership, women in development, and victims of torture (VOT), as well as activities related to anti-corruption and electoral policy reform. Although the policy topics will change from those addressed in Year 1, the project will continue to serve as a facilitator “building constructive relationships between the executive, civil society, and the media through support for participatory policy processes.” The project will also continue to work with a range of ministries, with the Ministry of Good Governance as our ministry of reference.

Following the structure of Section III of the change order, we have organized our Year 2 work according to four components (although for budgeting and invoicing purposes, the women’s leadership component will be split into women’s leadership and women in development). The four components are as follows:

• 5.1: Water Resources Management
• 5.2: Women’s Leadership
• 5.3: Victims of Torture
• 5.4: Elections and Political Processes

This work plan was developed in two phases. The first phase involved preparation of Chemonics’ proposal in response to the change order. The October 16 version of that proposal contained three sections for each component: an overview of the situation in Burundi, our understanding of the work to be accomplished, and our general approach to the component. The second phase, the work planning per se, built on the proposal, adding a fourth section for each component, called Organization of the Work. In late December, USAID provided comments on the document and we have incorporated the suggestions in this version.Therefore, for each component below, sections 1-3 repeat material already submitted and reviewed by USAID during the proposal phase. The material from the second phase, is found in each section 4. To assure consistency, the original sections include minor adjustments in the tasks, expected results, and activities to reflect agreements with the contracting officer between October 16 (date of the most recent technical proposal) and October 27 (the most recent cost proposal).

This Strategic Plan for Developing Agricultural Produce Market Infrastructure has been developed according to USAID AgroInvest Project Terms of References and major principles set forth by the Presidential Program for Economic Reforms, specifically, the Program for Ukrainian Rural Development until 2015. “Developing the agrarian market infrastructure and the network of wholesale markets of agriculture produce in particular is an essential component of this program”. The Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine estimates that commissioning the network of such markets will help Ukraine mobilize over UAH 10 million investments in the agrarian market infrastructure, and export of Ukrainian agriculture produce will generate extra revenues of over UAH 200 million every year. The government strategy for developing wholesale markets of agricultural produce aims at improving marketing of domestically produced fresh fruit and vegetables that comply with international food quality and safety standards and increasing sales of such produce to Ukrainian consumers.

IFC/Ukraine specialists indicate that some five million tons of fresh fruit and vegetables are lost every year due to poor harvest, postharvest handling, and marketing practices. The monetary value of these losses exceed one billion US dollars and more importantly, require Ukraine to import fresh fruit and vegetable products for which it has the capacity to produce domestically. Moreover, IFC surveys show that as little as 4%, 10%, and 19% storage facilities for potato, other vegetable, and fruit, respectively, comply with modern requirements. Their analysis suggests that Ukraine needs new cold storage facilities for approximately four million tons of potato, one million tons of other vegetables, and 498,000 tons of fruit. The provision of modern cold storages located within logistics centers and at strategic producer and physical market sites is identified by these studies as a key constraint to transforming Ukraine into a net fresh produce exporter. Currently, Ukraine is a net fresh produce importer for many products for which it has a comparative advantage based on climate and soil conditions.

In addition to lack of modern storage infrastructure, informed estimates suggest that formal retail market outlets distribute from less than 10 percent to no more than 25 percent of basic agriculture produce (potato, onion, beet, carrot, cabbage etc.). Most of these vegetables are still sold at traditional urban and rural retail markets lacking in modern storage and distributional facilities. Market managers and other specialists indicate that total sales volume through these markets has been increasing since the economic downturn resulting from the 2008 global recession and this is confirmed by recent IFC studies. At the same time, while total sales of vegetables through supermarkets and other retail stores are relatively small, significant supermarket sales increases are being recorded in larger cities and urban centers. This trend is particularly true for the growing number of young families who do not have an established loyalty to the traditional markets and is likely to gain momentum in the future.

As mentioned above, the new wholesale markets of agriculture produce are expected to increase sales of fresh fruit and vegetables that are produced domestically, and comply with international quality and safety standards. Achieving this goal will help Ukraine solve the current problem of low quality domestically produced fresh fruit and vegetables in supermarkets and other retail outlets and the AgroInvest Market Infrastructure sub-component is designed to support this MAPF policy goal.

The Strategic Plan is developed based on the following considerations:

• There is currently no clearly stated concept or comprehensive national approach to developing an integrated agricultural market infrastructure. However, initial program documentation refers to construction of 25 new regional markets using as a model the Lviv (Shuvar) market that has successfully evolved since the beginning of the new millennium. Recent program documents include the June 01, 2011 MAPF resolution authorizing first phase implementation of seven wholesale markets to be built in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Lviv, Odesa, Zaporizhya, and Kherson. In addition, Cabinet of Ministers Instruction # 761 dated July 27, 2011 authorized allocation of UAH 200 million from the state budget for the purpose of developing wholesale markets in Kyiv, Donetsk, Lviv, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv;
• The MAPF indicates that wholesale markets of agriculture produce (WMAPs) are set up and operated as public-private partnerships (PPPs). However, guidelines are not available defining this term and to date, the process for selecting private sector partners has been neither transparent nor competitive. Moreover, information on actual market owners/shareholders or the market capital structure is not available;
• The lack of an articulated conceptual strategy creates a logical disconnect between the new market structures and the existing village/urban retail markets and wholesale/retail markets that now inadequately serve the AgroInvest SMP target growers. However, as the new market being developed in Kyiv incorporates innovations introduced in the Lviv (Shuvar) market designed to address this constraint, the development direction of the new markets can be described as tentatively positive, but lacking a national strategy focus and design.

The lack of a national integrated agricultural market infrastructure strategy remains a major constraint to developing an efficient nationwide fresh agricultural produce market system that includes programs and physical infrastructure at local, sub-regional, and regional levels to facilitate SMP market access. AgroInvest will develop a strategy paper in order to provide MAPF and others with a transparent statement of the AgroInvest Market Infrastructure Development strategy with the idea that it can be adopted and implemented in whole or in part by the MAPF. The strategy paper will address the following actions that constitute the Component 3.2 Implementation Strategy:

• Integrate the current system of local, sub-regional and regional market infrastructure with the emerging regional WMAPs;
• Implement market procurement strategies, grower and market site logistic centers (including packinghouse and cold storage facilities) and extension and outreach grower training capacity at selected WMAP market development areas to facilitate large scale SMP and PO product access;
• Use internationally recognized public-private partnership mechanisms in the processes of construction and operation of market infrastructure facilities to promote private sector selection transparency;
• Introduce democratic market management approaches.

The Strategic Plan does not envisage any direct AgroInvest Project financial support of WMAP development that is already under construction in Donetsk, Kyiv, and Lviv. However, should opportunities, such as introduction of market located SMP extension and outreach training, become viable at these particular sites, AgroInvest will evaluate them and respond accordingly.