Paper: Developing investment-ready business cases with 4P
One of the aims of a Public-Private-Producer-Partnership (4Ps) is to build a profitable business case that can be used to attract external investments.
SNV and TheRockGroup launch a vision paper, the first in a series of three, that focuses on a “pre-investment” phase that is used to strengthen the capacities of the partners in a 4P arrangement and help them become investment-ready.
The Partnering for Value project, funded by IFAD, aims to develop best practices for investment brokering in 4p arrangements. We believe that such investments will benefit both the enterprises and the smallholder producers, making 4Ps a great tool for development.
Our experience in the Partnering for Value project, taught us that most 4Ps are not ready to attract investments: producer groups, small and medium sized enterprises are not able to access external financing due to capacity gaps, such as business management skills. As a result they are unable to provide proven results and forecasted returns for example.
We believe that identifying the gaps and weaknesses that hinder the partners from building a business case, including concrete steps and investments that are needed to remedy them, is a fundamental part of creating a 4P arrangement. An independent broker can play an important role in this process, ensuring that the needs and obligations of all actors are met equally.
In the paper we provide concrete insights and recommendations to donors and development organisations, to strengthen the capacities of each partner in the arrangement, so they can build an investment-ready business case.