The Zambia Business in Development Facility (ZBiDF), a partnership brokering facility amongst other competences, is currently facilitating the development of an end to end partnership in the cassava value chain called the Cassava to Starch Products Value Chain Partnership. The partnership is being facilitated as part of the scope of work under a contract between AMSCO and the Government of Zambia implemented through the Private Sector Development, Industrialisation and Job Creation Office (PSDIJCO). The main thrust of the assignment is to support the development of the partnerships that will lead to Industrialisation and job creation as part of the overall framework of the Industrialisation and Job Creation strategy.

The upstream and downstream challenges that the value chain as demonstrated by Premiercon Starch Limited, a company with an uptake agreement for starch with Kalumbila Mines Limited,provided the basis for developing the partnership. Through various interactions the Facility has moved the various stakeholders in the value chain through the scoping and building phase of the partnering cycle and the partnership is now at the stage of rolling over into the managing and maintaining phase of the cycle.

• Increased production of starch
• Promotion of the cassava industry as a growing sub sector in Agriculture;
• Poverty reduction amongst small holder farmers involved in cassava production
• Job creation in the value chain
• Increasing value addition to the cassava
• Rural industrialization.

Current stakeholders that have shown an interest and commitment to the development of the partnership include but not limited to the following;