As part of the INNOVATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT FOR A GREEN ECONOMY project, an ILS LEDA mission was carried out from January 19th to 27th, 2024 by Giulia Rucireta to the Union department in El Salvador. The aim of the mission was to share the proposals for strategic guidelines to develop the potential of the prioritized value chains: beekeeping, fruits and vegetables.

The objective of the project is to implement innovative and sustainable technologies in the vegetable, fruit and honey value chains that allow sustainable growth to the benefit of 250 MSMEs and producers of the vegetable, fruit, and honey value chains of the departments of La Unión and San Miguel.

ILSLEDA's role is:

1. to build a strategic framework to facilitate the sustainability of MSMEs, business plans that demonstrate the viability of innovations, by incorporating factors of medium environmental sustainability, circular economy and climate change mitigation.
2. Support the establishment of value chain groups, which represent the place where entrepreneurs, together with other actors, express their needs and difficulties, mutually learn best practices, decide common actions, monitor the impact of strategies and propose adjustments

In this mission, the members of the three Focus Groups of the value chain met separately, that is, 24 members from the vegetable value chain, 13 from the fruit value chain and 14 from the beekeeping value chain.

The Focus Groups definitively validated the strategic lines to better develop the potential of the value chains and the respective recommendations regarding competitive advantages, reference markets, relationships within the value chain, their sustainability, the obstacles to its full development. The focus groups also approved the project action priorities suggested by ILS LEDA.