Authors showed that multiple factors have to be gathered for research to be able to serve development through policy decision. An effective way to bridge applied research and policy in order to maximize mutual benefits is to build a sound and early partnership based on a clear framework so that research can provide relevant “understandable and usable” information to decision-makers. This is the basis on which the Value Chain Analysis for Development (VCA4D) project (2016-2022) was established. VCA4D is a partnership between the European Commission and Agrinatura, the alliance of European universities working together for agricultural research and education for development. This initiative intends to provide evidence-based knowledge to analyse development impacts of the value chains operations so as to help decision for investment projects in agriculture and to facilitate sectorial policy dialogue. Policy makers consider value chains as strategic elements for their policies. In order to achieve the overarching goal of inclusive and sustainable growth, support to value chains demands for the social, economic and environmental dimensions are thoroughly considered. The objective of this paper is to show how VCA4D applied sustainable development concept for value chain analysis to establish a manageable set of criteria allowing to provide quantitative information, which is desperately lacking in many situations in developing economies, usable by decision makers and in line with policymakers concerns and strategies (the “international development agenda”). The use of researchers to perform the analysis, contributes to the reinforcement of the linkages and mutual understanding between researchers and policy makers.