In 2004, 65 percent of the frozen broiler chickens for sale in Mozambique were imported from Brazil. To get to Mozambique, the chickens were frozen and shipped through the Middle East. By the time they arrived, they were often past their sell-by date, in violation of Mozambican import restrictions. Incredibly, the Brazilian product was cheaper than the Mozambican one. Why? Brazil’s agribusiness productivity and efficiency are certainly the envy of the world. But if the Mozambican poultry sector were at all competitive, it would surely be able to sell home-raised chicken more cheaply into a growing domestic market than the Brazilians can.

Such situations are not limited to Mozambique. There are significant possibilities in Africa to unlock value in different industry sectors, and these possibilities will grow over time. Success, however, will require the government and business to adopt a strategy based on an analytical and market-oriented approach, customized for the sector and focused on helping enterprises and people make money. While ultimately reliant on commercial incentives and viability, this strategy will probably require up-front, subsidized investments to seed the market, as well the coordination of stakeholders and interventions across the value chain.

In the case of Mozambique’s poultry sector, our nonprofit organization, TechnoServe,¹ with a mandate and funding from the US government, undertook a comprehensive value chain analysis starting with demand and working through the supply of feed, to layer and egg production, the feeding and growing of chicks, processing, marketing, and, ultimately, retail consumption. Our team interviewed hundreds of participants in the poultry and feed sectors and eventually assembled a strategic plan that identified and quantified potential demand, the major constraints along the value chain, the high-leverage (and other) points of intervention, and a specific industry-development program.