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The economy of Bangladesh is largely defined by the agricultural sector, which is reflected in its yearly GDP contribution of approximately 11% in the past few years (World Bank, 2022). The sector holds po tential for even higher contributions to the economy, provided effective initiatives related to financial in clusion and logistical innovations are implemented. Even during the immense global challenges during to the Covid-19 pandemic, the country’s agricultural sector persisted. Improving on traditional initiatives and practices to address constraints faced by farmers and other agricultural value chain actors will ena ble the sector to expand and benefit new sections of the population, including those most vulnerable such as the poor, women, and youth.

Many of the recent innovations in the agricultural sector in Bangladesh have been initiated by ‘AgriTech’ companies/start-ups in the space of financial and logistical services. Financial services are available for both small and large-scale agriculture operations in the country. Besides innovations in fi nancial services, there has been a burgeoning list of logistical services as well. Utilizing this wave of innovations appropriately can help the agricultural sector reach its full potential for success.

This report is arranged in the following manner. First section 1 discusses the traditional services in fi nancial and logistic sectors, and then section 2 discusses the existing constraints in both sectors. Sec tions 3 and 4 go into detail on financial and logistical innovations respectively that aim at addressing the discussed constraints. Both sections 3 and 4 have subsections giving a brief description of organiza tions that are behind these innovations.

Innovations and policy design for development for cross-value chain services (logistics and financial services)

WP3 intends to address the question: How can cross-food value chain and market services function better to increase employment and boost income of smallholders and SMEs? The WP focuses on two types of cross-value chain services, logistics and financial services. (1) logistics services – supply chain management, transportation, traceability, digital platforms for e-com merce, and (cold) storage. (2) value-chain financial services – mainly focusing on digital financial services (DFS) that facilitate trans actions, savings, access to and use of credit, and insurance. The logistics services in agri-food systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are often targeted at large-scale enterprises with greater market power and less accessible to smallholder farmers and small and micro enterprises (SMEs). WP3 aims to assess the ways in which these emerging logistics services (including digital platforms) can be cost-effectively targeted at smallholder farmers and agri-food SMEs. Regarding DFS, the WP will investigate cost-effective ways of improving access to and adoption of DFS among smallholders and agri-food SMEs, especially among women and youth. Though these emerging DFS appear to have a high potential to benefit smallholders and SMEs across the agri-food value chains in LMICs, they need a reliable internet connection, a suitable mobile phone network, and a broad network of mobile money agents to be effective. WP3 thus aims to identify innovations/emerging logistics and DFS and test their effectiveness to smallholders and SMEs using randomized control trials (RCTs) in pilots, with the goal of country-specific scalable designs.

Scoping study on Ethiopian sesame value chain

The Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) is the largest non-profit public agricultural research group globally. Recently, it has restructured itself into One-CGIAR with the intention of integrating its capabilities, knowledge, assets, people, and global presence for a new era of intercon nected and partnership-driven research towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One-CGIAR led the development of about 30 initiatives that aimed at addressing one more of the key impact areas of SDGs. One of these initiatives is “Rethinking Food Markets and Value Chains for Inclu sion and Sustainability,” referred to as rethinking markets in short. Rethinking Markets Initiative aims to provide evidence on what types of bundled innovations, incentive structures, and policies are most effec tive for creating more equitable sharing of income and employment opportunities in growing food markets, while reducing the food sector’s environmental footprint. The initiative has four work packages addressing different but interrelated issues and that are being implemented in one or more countries. Work Package 1 (WP1) is about making globally integrated value chains inclusive, efficient, and environmentally sustainable.