Anna Laven is an advisor on sustainable economic development at the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), Amsterdam, the Netherlands. With a background in political science and environmental management, Laven is finalizing her PhD on upgrading strategies for cocoa farmers in Ghana at the Amsterdam Institute for Metropolitan and Development studies (AMIDSt), University of Amsterdam. Within KIT she works on sustainable procurement (cocoa sector), value chain finance, gender in value chains and knowledge management. She is co-author (with Giel Ton, Geoffrey Hagelaar and Sietze Vellema) of Chain Governance, Sector Policies and Economic Sustainability in Cocoa: A comparative analysis of Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ecuador, Markets, Chains and Sustainable Development Strategy & Policy paper 12, Wageningen UR.
Global value chains offer many opportunities for rural entrepreneurs in developing countries to become competitive actors in world markets. But unless local power relations are taken into account, value chain development is unlikely to reduce pove...
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