In 2026, AMEA launched a free benchmarking service to help Business Development Service (BDS) providers see how their tools measure up against international standards. The first 12 benchmarking reports are now complete, and the findings are captured in our new brief, A system step-change that improves our support to Agri-SMEs.

The message is clear and encouraging: every tool assessed was credible and working, and every one had specific, addressable gaps that benchmarking brought into view.

Why ISO 18716?

AMEA supported the International Organization for Standardization in developing ISO 18716: Guidance for Professional Farmer Organizations, through a global, consultative process spanning eight years. The standard sets out six core capacities for measuring the growth of farmer organisations and other agri-enterprises:

• Governance practices
• Business management
• Human resources management
• Financial management
• Community and stakeholder engagement
• Member services and business activities

These same capacities give BDS providers a shared framework for assessing the scope of the tools they use to support agri-enterprises.

Who took part in the benchmarking?

The first cohort brought together BDS providers from Benin, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, alongside the East African Farmers Federation. Results are presented anonymously, so no tool can be linked to the provider that uses it. This anonymity encourages providers to share data, tools and learning openly.

Across the 12 tools, ISO 18716 alignment ranged from 50% to 88%. Lower scores do not necessarily mean lower quality. More often, they reflect a tool's scope. Tools designed for private companies, for example, do not address the membership processes and dynamics that are central to cooperatives and farmer organisations.

What's working

• Sales and marketing was the strongest domain overall, with nine of the 12 tools scoring 80% or higher and several reaching 100%.
• Financial planning and KPI-driven performance monitoring were similarly strong wherever a tool had a financial management focus.
• Purpose-built depth: where a tool was designed for one institutional function, such as value-chain finance, enterprise diagnostics or cooperative capacity, alignment in that domain frequently reached 90 to 100%.
• Risk management: two tools stood out for embedding risk-management and business-continuity content, a rare and valuable differentiator.

Where the common gaps lie

Despite differences in sector, geography and institutional mandate, the same gaps appeared across nearly every tool.

• Governance: Lack of depth in probing governance capabilities was found in all 12 tools, and for four it was the single largest driver of a low overall score. Formal election procedures, board and committee meeting requirements, and conflict-resolution or anti-corruption mechanisms were often missing.
• Membership and enterprise development: mechanisms for managing inactive members, member equity or fee-based participation, and annual membership plans linked to the business plan were absent or partial in most tools. Content on production planning, input safety, post-harvest handling, food safety and climate-smart practice was also often missing.
• Financial governance: even strong tools rarely required documented evidence for signatory designation, bank-account governance, tax and regulatory responsibilities, or regular financial statements. This is a low-cost, high-value fix. Diagnostics have to go beyond a conversation.
• HR infrastructure: roughly half the tools lacked checks on written job descriptions and on recruitment processes linked to strategic planning.
• Risk management: absent from most tools, making it one of the highest-leverage additions a provider can make.

Why this matters for BDS providers

Professional agri-enterprises are better placed to access business opportunities, operate sustainably and deliver more benefits to their members. That is essential for inclusive growth, and it depends on high-quality BDS.

The first cohort shows two things. First, no tool needed to be rebuilt from scratch. Closing the gaps identified would take as little as four to six weeks for the strongest tools and no more than six months for the weakest. Second, benchmarking reveals what providers cannot easily see from the inside. Governance depth, membership lifecycle mechanics and financial-policy documentation are exactly the areas self-assessment tends to underestimate, because informal day-to-day practice can feel sufficient.

Providers are already acting on their results, with plans ranging from dedicated governance enhancement modules to new toolkits tailored to farmer organisations, cooperatives, and women- and youth-led enterprises.

Looking ahead

Our aim is to prove the value of this service and to support local institutions to deliver it, potentially through a self-service, AI-driven portal. Proven tools that already deliver high-quality BDS are benchmarked to ISO 18716 in AMEA's peer-reviewed Boîte à outils.

Learn more about ISO 18716: ameaglobal.org/standards