Matchmaking Events in Ghana and Kenya: New Learning Cases

The Procurement Governance for Home Grown School Feeding (PG-HGSF) project is pleased to share two new learning cases that discuss our matchmaking pilots in Ghana and Kenya.

Ghana matchmaking events: Building links between farmers and school feeding caterers

The Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP) guidelines specify that caterers should procure 80% of their foodstuffs from smallholder farmers. However, when the SNV Procurement Governance for Home Grown School Feeding (PG-HGSF) project was launched in 2012, there were no structured opportunities for caterers and FBOs to meet, learn about each other’s offers, and interface on commercial agreements. The challenge that SNV faced was how to create effective, long-term links between entrepreneurial caterers and farmer organisations with the potential to help GSFP meet its agricultural objective. To improve awareness of GSFP as market opportunity for smallholder farmers, PG-HGSF is piloting matchmaking events to generate new, concrete, buyer-seller relationships for the school feeding programme. The case study 'Learning Case #5, Ghana matchmaking events: Building links between farmers and school feeding caterers' outlines PG-HGSF’s matchmaking approach in Ghana, which focuses on participant preparation, networking and signing memoranda of understanding, and post-event MOU reviews and follow-up events. The case presents lessons learned from two of the 20 business relationships that emerged as the result of a matchmaking event in Wa East.

Knowing the source of the food: Matching smallholder farmers to the school meals market in Kenya

This case study examines SNV Kenya’s approach to connecting school feeding buyers to smallholder farmers through matchmaking events organized through the Procurement Governance for Home Grown School Feeding project. SNV’s baseline found that the participation of smallholder farmers as Home Grown School Meals (HGSM) suppliers was negligible, despite the market’s size, USD 15.4 million in food purchases annually, and HGSM’s emphasis on linking school feeding to agricultural and community development. In early 2013, SNV Kenya started piloting matchmaking events to expose farmers to the HGSM market, procurement process, and supplier requirements. The events led to more farmer organizations (FOs) participating in the bidding processes for school feeding and created successful supply contracts between HGSM schools and FOs. The case study 'Learning Case #6, Knowing the source of the food: Matching smallholder farmers to the school meals market in Kenya' assesses the short- and long-term sales transactions that emerged as a result of one matchmaking event in Baringo County.