TechnoServe
www.technoserve.org
203-852-0377

TechnoServe is an international non-profit development organization committed to building businesses in developing countries that will directly benefit the rural poor - businesses that will create jobs and also provide markets where small-scale farmers can sell their produce and earn higher incomes.

TechnoServe focuses on three actions: identify the opportunity, build the business, and expand the impact. The organization also provides market information and expert advice. Once these businesses are proven to be sustainable, TechnoServe seeks to replicate them to build competitive industries - which leads to additional job creation and higher incomes in rural communities.

TechnoServe's work is based on the premise that economic development is a critical precursor to social development. This is because social infrastructure - like schools, health clinics and libraries - cannot be maintained without financial resources, which are generated by profitable businesses and the jobs and incomes they provide.

Since 1968, TechnoServe has worked in a total of 22 developing countries, and currently operates 10 country programs in El Salvador,Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania and South Africa.

In 2000, Jerry Baldwin, Peet's former Chairman, joined TechnoServe's Board of Directors. Since that time, Jerry has traveled the globe as one of TechnoServe's industry experts, providing his world-class advice on how the coffee growers TechnoServe assists can earn higher prices by improving their coffee quality and selling to the specialty market.

Today, TechnoServe continues to implement business solutions to help struggling coffee growers, their workers and producer-countries that have been hard hit by the global coffee crisis. TechnoServe is also working in other key industries that have the potential to drive rural economic development - including cashew, fresh fruit, dairy and tourism -- in order to provide hardworking men and women with the opportunity to better their own lives.

Read about TechnoServe's ongoing initiatives to assist small-scale coffee growers:
   In Rwanda
   In Tanzania