Facilitating Innovation for Poverty Reduction the Andes

The International Potato Center (CIP) and partners in South America have developed the Participatory Market Chain Approach (PMCA) to promote understanding and partnerships among a wide range of public and private actors. It seeks to generate group innovations based on a structured participatory process that gradually builds (a) interest, (b) trust, and (c) collaboration among members of the market chain and service providers. Innovations can be new products and processes, new technologies or new institutionality, which benefit farmers and other actors of the market chain, directly or indirectly. PMCA has been developed as a research for development tool to bring diverse partners together for generating innovation around market opportunities and contribute to link Andean potato farmers with new markets taking advantage of potato biodiversity.