Recent Publications & Learning
Doing development differently starts with better evidence and learning.
Doing development differently starts with better evidence and learning.
This report provides a review of market analyses and in-depth interviews with key staff from projects seeking to apply a market systems development (MSD) approach. The purpose of this paper is to improve the practices of projects wanting to understand where and how to intervene to facilitate market systems development that creates inclusive benefits for target populations.
Read MoreThis brief paper describes an effort to build a set of basic and easily used tools for monitoring system dynamics, or system health. The term, “system dynamics,” refers to the way actors, or agents, within a system act and relate to one another. It includes flows between agents as well as the norms that govern the way groups of agents in a system make seemingly independent decisions.
Read MoreThis study examines the incentives and constraints to adaptive programming across the donor-implementer relationship – and how the behaviour that results influences market systems programming. Based on research and interviews with over 60 experts across a range of donor and implementer organisations, four ‘baskets’ of issues emerged: knowledge, leadership, culture, and procurement and contract features.
Read MoreThis paper explores how social norms influence women’s economic empowerment in market systems development, and what practical lessons might be learned. It documents how gendered social norms are currently understood in academic research, then attempts to present the current state of practice for market systems programmes via two in-depth cases, and seven mini-cases.
Read MoreOver the course of the Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) activity, MSA discovered that there had been very analysis of the durability of the results created by market systems development initiatives following their completion. Consequently, MSA conducted this ex-post assessment of the USAID/Cambodia Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) project's work in the swine sector five years following its closure. MSME promoted the use by the private sector of an embedded training model, in which companies would provide technical information on input selection and application at no direct charge to swine farmers in order to increase input sales. MSA’s research found that the embedded training model has endured and indeed expanded since the end of the project, being used to varying extents by the majority of the firms in the sector, indicating that it has become an industry norm.
Read MoreEconomic development programs are increasingly taking a systems approach. This paper suggests that the shift to a systemic perspective calls into question the utility of using scale as a key measure of project success, at least in its current usage. While understanding a project’s outreach still has a place, it has been traditionally overused as the primary means of assessing a project’s impact; a use which creates perverse incentives for projects trying to take a systemic approach.
Read MoreThis paper, based on extensive research and interviews, provides the rationale that market systems facilitation practitioners can use to engage private sector firms in efforts to empower women. From identifying partners to articulating the mutually beneficial value of women's inclusion, the paper offers guidance and real-world examples to help companies empower women working at every level of the economy.
Read MoreThis paper strives to inform the development of market systems that improve smallholder access to and adoption of commercial inputs. Previous studies have focused primarily on cases where donor funding has facilitated market change. This report, on the other hand, considers a diversity of models but focuses particularly on those that have reached significant scale.
Read MoreSmallholder farmers represent a majority of the world’s farmers and a majority of the world’s poor. Low agricultural productivity is a key driver of their poverty. Yet while the application of improved inputs such as fertilizer, agrochemicals and seeds have significant potential to increase both agricultural yields and farmer income, input access among smallholder farmers remains low.
Read MoreThis case study examines CARE International’s efforts to promote access to basic financial services and agricultural input and output markets in very poor areas of rural Zimbabwe. This case study investigates two research propositions: (a) savings groups enhance the capacity of smallholder farmers to purchase agricultural inputs; and (b) linkages of savings groups to an agro-dealer model improves access to and participation in agricultural input and output markets.
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