The Misunderstood Middle: The Role of Intermediate Firms and Investors in Scaling Outcomes from Conservation Enterprises
A Retrospective Evaluation found that USAID programs supporting conservation enterprises tend to evolve from providing support to individual or community-run enterprises to helping to establish “intermediate firms”— businesses in the supply chain that provide services such as aggregation, value addition, and market linkages for products and services from many communities. Intermediary firms are key to bringing community benefits to scale, and, in turn, scaling changes in behaviors and reducing threats to biodiversity. This brief summarizes the key roles that intermediate firms play, and the enabling conditions and challenges that enterprises face in scaling to become intermediate firms. It consolidates learning from the March 2021 Conservation Enterprises Learning Group webinar of the same name.
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The Misunderstood Middle: The Role of Intermediate Firms and Investors in Scaling Outcomes from Conservation Enterprises
A Retrospective Evaluation found that USAID programs supporting conservation enterprises tend to evolve from providing support to individual or community-run enterprises to helping to establish “intermediate firms”— businesses in the supply chain that provide services such as aggregation, value addition, and market linkages for products and services from many communities. Intermediary firms are key to bringing community benefits to scale, and, in turn, scaling changes in behaviors and reducing threats to biodiversity. This brief summarizes the key roles that intermediate firms play, and the enabling conditions and challenges that enterprises face in scaling to become intermediate firms. It consolidates learning from the March 2021 Conservation Enterprises Learning Group webinar of the same name.
