AgResults Demonstrates Experience Designing Livestock Prize Competitions at GASL Meeting

AgResults sparked a lively conversation on how Pay-for-Results (PfR) prize competitions can drive private sector-led growth in the livestock sector at the 9th annual Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock (GASL) Multi-Stakeholder Partnership (MSP) meeting. On September 10, Christopher Brett and John Cassidy led a session describing AgResults’ PfR prize competition framework to livestock experts and shared their experiences designing and implementing prizes that tackle challenges in the livestock sector.

The session, titled “Prize Competitions to Drive Private Sector-Led Growth and Investment in Livestock Productivity,” featured Mr. Brett, Lead Agribusiness Specialist in the Global Agricultural Practice of the World Bank and Steering Committee member, and Mr. Cassidy, Managing Director at Deloitte Consulting. The presentation explored AgResults’ prize competitions that aim to create an effective Brucellosis vaccine and to strengthen the dairy value chain in Tanzania. Attendees were particularly interested in learning how prizes were designed and how to ensure robust verification of results.

“The session brought together a good diverse audience representing stakeholders from research, private sector, implementing partners, and donors,” said Mr. Brett. “There was a lot of interest in how the prizes are designed – how they are selected, how to develop the right size of prize to incentivize the private sector to engage, and how prize mechanisms could be applied elsewhere in the development community.”

The 9th MSP meeting, which ran from September 9 to 13, tackled the theme of “Innovation for Sustainable Livestock Systems.” Discussions at the meeting highlighted the critical need for public and private actors to collaborate regionally and globally to address livestock sustainability. As environmental and political challenges continue to rise, a unified vision and concrete action will be key to creating more sustainable livestock agrifood systems.

The full presentation can be found here.

Funded by USAID (US), DFID (UK), DFAT (Australia), Global Affairs Canada, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, AgResults has designed and implemented prize competitions since 2013 focused on spurring fundamental change in market relationships between the private sector and smallholder farmers.