TechnoServe helps people lift themselves out of poverty by harnessing the power of the private sector. A leading nonprofit organization operating in almost 30 countries, we work with hardworking women and men in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses, and industries. By linking people to information, capital, and markets, we have helped millions to create lasting prosperity for their families and communities.

TechnoServe harnesses the power of the private sector to benefit the world’s poor. We help people in developing countries improve the value of what they produce and strengthen their role in larger markets—because when people have the skills and connections to improve their own incomes, the benefits last a lifetime.

TechnoServe achieves this through strong local expertise; world-class market analysis; and commitment to rigorous impact measurement to enable enterprising people to lift themselves out of poverty.

Our Approach
Explore how TechnoServe’s business solutions to poverty work to improve incomes and lives around the world.

How Our Business Solutions to Poverty Work
For over 50 years, TechnoServe has worked with enterprising people across the developing world to help them improve their incomes, lives, and communities. Explore our projects.

Our TechnoServe program at work in the field.

Empower small-scale farmers and businesspeople with the skills and knowledge they need to earn more money.
Train farmers how to improve the quality and yields of their crops and earn higher prices
Train and mentor small-scale entrepreneurs in the skills to grow their business and create jobs
Help small-scale producers organize into business groups, improving their knowledge, credit access, and negotiating power

Connect these emerging businesses and farms to better markets, suppliers, and financing.
Work with large companies to incorporate small-scale suppliers into their business models
Help local companies like food processors and exporters improve their capacity to buy from small-scale producers
Advise finance providers on how to expand services to underserved farmers and entrepreneurs

Sustain progress by improving the business environment for small-scale producers.
Fix market gaps by training local service providers to support emerging farms and businesses
Advise on local and national policies that will improve business opportunities for small-scale producers
Leverage technology to improve connections and transparency within a market and to scale up effective solutions

What We Do
Solutions to Poverty through Agriculture
TechnoServe helps smallholder farmers and promotes sustainable agriculture.

Nearly two-thirds of the world’s poor rely on agriculture for their incomes, making this sector two to four times more effective at raising incomes in developing countries than other sectors. TechnoServe helps smallholder farmers improve the quality and quantity of high-value crops with particular potential for improving incomes.

TechnoServe was founded by Ed Bullard in 1968 to help hardworking people in the developing world lift themselves, their families, and their communities out of poverty.

Ed was captivated by the spirit and character of the Ghanaian people. But he was appalled by the depth of poverty that surrounded him. A businessman, Ed understood that the contrast between this poverty and his own prosperity came not from any innate difference between himself and a poor Ghanaian farmer.

1985: Ed Bullard visits farmers who are working with TechnoServe in Drumvale, Kenya.
Ed Bullard visits farmers who are working with TechnoServe in Drumvale, Kenya in 1985.
Instead, the people he saw struggled because they lacked the knowledge, skills and tools needed to lift themselves out of poverty. So in 1968, Ed launched TechnoServe – short for “technology in the service of mankind.” He envisioned TechnoServe as a different type of nonprofit, one that would help poor people by connecting them to information and market opportunities.

Today, TechnoServe works with enterprising people in the developing world to build competitive farms, businesses and industries. We have worked in more than 40 countries across Africa, Latin America and Asia, assisting thousands of businesses and improving the incomes of millions of people.

True to Ed’s vision, we provide business solutions to poverty by linking people to information, capital and markets. With more than four decades of proven results, we believe in the power of private enterprise to transform lives.