Value Chains, Social Inclusion and Economic Development

Lead firms, development organisations, donors and governments view value chains and voluntary standards as vital instruments for achieving millennium development goals through trade and market-related interventions. The precise foundations for these development strategies, which suggest positive development outcomes from integration of poor actors into value chains, are as yet underdeveloped. The interdisciplinary work in this volume shows how trade is managed and asks theory-driven questions about how value chains relate to locally-rooted development processes.

A.H.J. (Bert) Helmsing is Professor of Local and Regional Development, International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Sietze Vellema is Associate Professor at the Technology and Agrarian Development group of Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and Senior Researcher/Program Leader at their Agricultural Economics Research Institute.