The Integrating Very Poor Producers into Value Chains Field Guide is intended to provide the field-level practitioner with tools and applications to reach very poor households. The intended outcome of the Field Guide is to have greater market engagement for very poor households through enterprise development activities.

The Field Guide focuses on allowing practitioners to more effectively reach the very poor, defined as those persons in the bottom half of the population below the nationally defined poverty line or those living on less than the purchasing power parity equivalent of $1 per day.

Value chain development methodologies have been used widely in enterprise and market development. Donors such as USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, DFID, GIZ and AusAID have supported this work. For development organisations, value chain development tools have been helpful, but many of the tools have not been specifically designed to support or benefit very poor producers.