The Context Network® Establishes Context Global Development®

Originally published March 2016.

Growth — it’s at the core of everything we do in agriculture. Context is no exception, and we continue to grow in the services that we offer as we work to advance agriculture; making it more productive, more efficient and more sustainable around the globe.

Recently, The Context Network announced the formation of Context Global Development® (CGD), a non-profit organization to support program implementation needs of agricultural and social impact development donors worldwide. CGD’s core goal is to maximize the value of agricultural resources in developing countries by harnessing Context’s commercial and development expertise. In doing so, we will catalyze public-private partnerships that result in meaningful and lasting change.

Evolving Services to Meet the Need
Context has worked in recent years to identify and prioritize strategies for catalyzing development in agriculture value chains to improve the lives of smallholder farmers in developing countries. In the course of assisting major donors with grant-making strategies and program design initiatives, Context identified a vital need in the agricultural development sector. In response, CGD was founded to support donor organizations with economically sustainable, market-orientated initiatives by leading engagements with private-sector stakeholders.

In-field Commercialization Globally
Working closely with donors, CGD teams seamlessly to embed as avisors, trainers or managers into the core operations of public-private partnerships in commercialization support and business analytics capacities. CGD’s sole focus on agriculture includes:

• Bringing better data to agriculture
• Seeding sustainable systems to value chains
• Incubating product development and promotion in-field
• Piloting to markets the commercialization of technology
• Aggregating markets and advocating institutional changes

CGD already has been selected for and has begun work on two significant multi-year grants.

As the lead grantee for one initiative, CGD will focus on sorghum and millet in West Africa’s Sahel region. In another, CGD is a sub-grantee and will focus on developing a seed system for cassava in Nigeria.

• “Realizing Sorghum and Millet Agricultural Productivity Gains in the Sahel” is a two-year program based on a $4 million USD grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The initiative aims to realize agricultural productivity gains for smallholder farmers (SHF) growing sorghum and pearl millet in the Sahelian zones of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Nigeria.
• “Building an Economically Sustainable, Integrated Seed System for Cassava in Nigeria” is funded with $11.6 million USD from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The 4-year project aims to sustainably improve farmers’ access to high-quality and affordable cassava planting materials through the development and promotion of commercial models for seed provision.

Both grants have the potential to directly improve the lives of thousands of men, women, and children in key developing regions of Africa.

This represents just the beginning of what we feel will be many more opportunities to drive transformative change for agricultural communities around the world. We’re grateful to be entrusted as an implementation partner to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers.

For more information contact Mark Nelson | mark.nelson@contextnet.com