Building Inclusive Value Chains in Biotrade

‘Inclusive business’ usually refers to business models that incorporate vulnerable or low-income groups into the value chain by means of the action of a lead firm. It often entails coalitions of development organizations, governments and the private sector (multi-stakeholder partnerships). UNCTAD defines biotrade as the ‘collection, production, transformation, and commercialization of goods and services derived from native biodiversity under the criteria of environmental, social and economic sustainability’. ¹ Biotrade may be seen as a new generation of economic tools for achieving the three main tenets of the Convention on Biological Diversity, namely conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use of its components and equitable sharing of the benefits generated from its use. Furthermore, biotrade products are the outcome of recent innovation processes that could become drivers of rural economic development.