2026 A Breakthrough Year Ahead Report
2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for transforming BDS markets. Building on 2025’s momentum, we’re focused on scaling what works and generating the insights that drive change. Quick Highlights 2025 Impact: Over 2.1 million farmers directly benefited from BDS across 65 projects in 29 countries, with 12+ million benefiting indirectly. 2026 Focus: […]
The 2SCALE Ethiopia KMFCU Public-private partnership
Over three years, Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) achieved a breakthrough in business development services delivery—creating a tiered BDS model that generated exceptional returns while reaching over 1,200 agri-SMEs across four regions and twelve value chains. With an 18:1 ROI on revenue increases and 84:1 ROI on capital mobilized, the ATI AgriHub program demonstrates how strategic segmentation and diagnostic-led approaches can revolutionize SME support systems, delivering ETB 3.16 billion in finance access while creating sustainable employment across Ethiopia’s agricultural sector.
EDS – Blended for Climate-Smart Agribusiness – Replay
AMEA ended the event with the launch of the AMEA Toolbox Guide 2025. The AMEA Toolbox is a collection of peer reviewed tools that are highly aligned to ISO 18716. These tools enable SMEs to build a performance track record which is useful to accessing new markets and new finance. The inter-operability of these tools has developed and examples are included in the Guide.
ATI Agrihub – Scaling Agri-BDS in Ethiopia
Over three years, Ethiopia’s Agricultural Transformation Institute (ATI) achieved a breakthrough in business development services delivery—creating a tiered BDS model that generated exceptional returns while reaching over 1,200 agri-SMEs across four regions and twelve value chains. With an 18:1 ROI on revenue increases and 84:1 ROI on capital mobilized, the ATI AgriHub program demonstrates how strategic segmentation and diagnostic-led approaches can revolutionize SME support systems, delivering ETB 3.16 billion in finance access while creating sustainable employment across Ethiopia’s agricultural sector.
EDS Replay – Agribusiness & Nature Based Solutions
AMEA ended the event with the launch of the AMEA Toolbox Guide 2025. The AMEA Toolbox is a collection of peer reviewed tools that are highly aligned to ISO 18716. These tools enable SMEs to build a performance track record which is useful to accessing new markets and new finance. The inter-operability of these tools has developed and examples are included in the Guide.
Future Learning and New BDS Toolkit | D2CS ALE25
AMEA ended the event with the launch of the AMEA Toolbox Guide 2025. The AMEA Toolbox is a collection of peer reviewed tools that are highly aligned to ISO 18716. These tools enable SMEs to build a performance track record which is useful to accessing new markets and new finance. The inter-operability of these tools has developed and examples are included in the Guide.
Gender business transformation models | D2T4 ALE25
Kafui presented IDH’s five-component approach to gender-transformative business models that deliver both commercial viability and women’s empowerment by addressing root causes of gender inequality. He conducted an interactive demo of IDH’s Innovation Library tool, showing how users can filter innovations to address gender inequality while maintaining business benefits. The presentation emphasized intentional design over add-on approaches.
Digital/blended service delivery – is it delivering more for less? | D2T3 ALE25
IFC and ATI had both experimented with blended approaches which was necessary due to the COVID-19 restrictions. So we now asked: Does Digital Deliver More for Less? Africa Turnaround, African Management Institute and L-IFT presented different aspects to this question. We learnt about an “Uber for BDS” Model: Concept for certified BDS providers to build on and use existing content (rather than reinventing the wheel).
Scaling Agri-BDS in the Ethiopian Barley Value Chain | D2T2 ALE25
We continued the Ethiopian theme as we launched the IFC-Soufflet Ethiopia Case Study which documents the latest phase in IFC’s decade long support to the barley value chain. IFC’s Agribusiness Leadership Program was highly valued but it was the whole package of support that enabled the SMEs to rapidly grow their business.
Segmenting and Tailoring BDS for the SME Market | D2T1 ALE25
Data is also valuable for Segmenting and Tailoring BDS for the SME market.The Agri-SME Learning Collective (ASLC) has proposed moving beyond use of traditional business size/stage criteria
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