Land O'Lakes Venture37

With better access to input supplies like animal health products and silage, youth dairy farmers across Tanzania like Emmanuel Samuel have learned critical skills from local businesses through the AgResults Tanzania Dairy Productivity Challenge Project. With these skills, young people are improving how they farm and boosting productivity. These changes are making Tanzania's dairy sector stronger and more sustainable.   Emmanuel estimates that milk production has tripled in the last two years: "We managed to solve some challenges like feed availability and nutrition, which are very important for the animals," he says. "The milk increased. The animals also became healthier."   #YouthSkillsDay #PayforResults Land O'Lakes Venture37

USAID’s CD4’s closing event was filled with amazing moments and unforgettable memories. A huge thank you to everyone who participated! Watch this video that captured the essence of what made this evening special! #USAID #CD4 #cooperatives

Are you implementing co-investment grants on a market systems development (MSD) project?  👇🏾👇🏻👇🏿 Check out the carousel for 9 quick tips on navigating co-investment grants from Gwendolyn Tweed, Partnership and Grants Manager on the USAID Southern African Mobilizing Investment Activity. And check out a few bonus suggestions from Gwendolyn below:     ➡ In Market systems projects, the project should never be prescriptive with their solicitations—it should be responsive—so the project should focus on utilizing requests for concepts to allow the market to inform the grant activity.  ➡ Allowing a project to have a mixture of grants and procurement mechanisms to pull from is the most ideal design for a market systems project.  Grants can be utilized by partners while procurement/subcontracts can be utilized by the project to support the broader ecosystem with multiple beneficiaries. ➡ In the pre-award stage there should always be two tracks and the potential grant applicant works with the project leads for those two tracks: Technical for the program description and Grants for Due Diligence. It also important to loop in M&E and Communications to ensure proper understanding of the partnership for all parties. ➡The project should always be moving as fast as the partner applicant - if a partner cannot work on the grant application due to investor committees or other business activities it means that the project’s support is just a small piece of their applicant’s business plan, and that partner is a serious entity in the market.  Thanks for these practical tips, Gwendolyn! These tips were originally shared in the recent Marketlinks webinar, Navigating Co-Investment Grants Lessons from Market Systems Development Programs. Given that they resonate so much with our private sector partnerships learning journey, we wanted to share them more broadly. Thanks to Marketlinks, ACDI/VOCA, Land O'Lakes Venture37, and DAI for convening the webinar. (To hear more on this from Gwendolyn’s co-facilitators Tatjana Milić Zanoškar, Lucia Zigiriza, and Austen Musso, watch the recording here: https://lnkd.in/gFf-Mzux ⭐❗This is a fantastic starting point for a conversation that will continue in MSP’s upcoming Adaptive Partnerships for Systemic Impact clinic series (targeted at implementers of USAID-funded market systems projects). If you haven’t already, be sure to apply by June 28th using the following link: https://lnkd.in/d_MRitHW If you have any other tips on navigating co-investment grants, drop them in the chat! 

37 = the % of our earth’s land where farmers grow their crops and raise their livestock to nourish the world. Land O'Lakes Venture37 is the OCDC member spotlight this month. Read how, through their USAID Cooperative Development Program (CDP), they are working across continents, cultures, and markets – to make abundant, nutritious food available so everyone can realize their full potential. https://lnkd.in/g8_Y2X5P