Ulrich Harmes-Liedtke interviews Vinicius Lages of SEBRAE, Brazil’s small business promotion organisation. He explains how an SME-oriented supplier development project with Petrobras evolved into a value chain project, how SEBRAE approaches the issue of certification of SMEs, and the link to territorial development. -- Apologies again for the poor sound quality, hopefully for the last time since Ulli recently purchased a new and much better recording device!

Frank Waeltring interviews LED practitioners from several South East European countries. They share some of their main learning processes.

Ulrich Harmes-Liedtke and Martin Doherty talk about the relevance of sanitary and phytosanitary standards in global value chains, their impact on producers, and possible responses by producers, including efforts to move into niche products or innovative, unusual products. -- We apologise for the poor sound quality of this recording.

Colin Mitchell explains a simple workshop format to engage with stakeholders at a very early stage of an LED process, asking them: What makes you mad? What makes you glad? What makes you sad?

Jorg Meyer-Stamer interviews Mark Lundy of the Agribusiness Group at the Center for Tropical Agriculture, www.ciat.cgiar.org. They talk about CIAT's "learning community" around value chain development, surprising experiences with powerful buyers, and what often goes wrong in value chain initiatives.

Shawn and Jorg explain how to use Michael Porter's Five Forces Concept as a tool in a quick workshop with local businesses from the same subsector.

Jorg Meyer-Stamer interviews Lizbeth Navas-Aleman, fellow at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex, about her research on the learning that takes place, or doesn't take place, as companies from developing countries are integrated into global value chains.

Hayder Al-Bagdadi, Atjeng Kadaryana and Christian Schoen discuss the achievements and learning processes in the Regional Economic Development Programme [gtz-RED] in Central Java, Indonesia.

With this show we start a new series in the LEDcast. We look at value chains: What are they? How are they relevant for local economic development? How can you promote them?

Jörg Meyer-Stamer interviews John Lawson, an LED specialist currently involved in a major EU-supported LED programme in South Africa's Limpopo province. John reports on his experience with initiating an LED process in a poor rural municipality called Fetagkomo.