Making Markets Work

VSO and the Accenture Foundation have a five-year programme to give poor and marginalised people more access to markets to give them opportunities to earn more secure income. Read about the Making Markets Work project in Tanzania.

VSO’s secure livelihoods work is supported by our corporate partner, Accenture, as part of their global corporate citizenship initiative, Skills to Succeed. Through this partnership, we have received grant funding for the global project ‘Making Markets Work’.

One of the project’s main goals is to create livelihoods opportunities for marginalised people. In Zanzibar, VSO volunteer Maurice Kwame is sharing his enterprise and marketing skills with women’s groups to help them reap the rewards of the local tourism industry.

These groups rely on agriculture to make a living, but unreliable rainfall poses a serious threat to their crops. As a result, their income fluctuates throughout the year: “That is why it is important for the groups to diversify, to get involved in other activities,” explains Maurice.

For members of Kisakasaka Women’s Group, fattening crabs has become one such activity. Members of the group buy small mud crabs for 500 shillings (20p) each and feed them twice a day with fish scraps.

Six weeks later the crabs can weigh up to one or two kilograms and can be sold to hotels for up to 5,000 shillings (£2.10). The additional income enables women like Sada Juma to send their children to school and buy medicine for them when they are sick: “Our aim is to bring more wealth to our village, to eradicate poverty here,” says Sada.

Changing lives

Explore further case studies of the Making Markets Work programme

Malawi coffee co-operatives

Brewing up success for Tanzanian coffee farmers

Transforming the dairy value chain in Malawi

Fish farming for a brighter future