Recent Publications & Learning
Doing development differently starts with better evidence and learning.
Doing development differently starts with better evidence and learning.
There are significant challenges impeding the measurement of job creation. The complexity of the topic makes measurement challenging and error-prone. Few guidance documents are available presenting methodologies for measuring project-level impacts on job creation. The aim of this paper is to provide guidance and practical examples on measuring job creation impacts.
Read MoreThis report presents a literature review on evaluating systems and systemic change. This review highlights findings that can contribute to developing an evaluation framework for interventions to facilitate inclusive market systems development and empirical approaches for identifying and monitoring systemic changes.
Read MoreThe Start-up Toolkit for Youth Employability Projects provides valuable tools and lessons learned for development practitioners engaged in developing and/or facilitating employment and entrepreneurship projects for young people.
Read MoreThis preliminary scoping study presents the outcome of an analytical review of markets and poverty in northern Kenya. It begins with a definition of financial graduation models tracing the evolution of approaches and pathways out of poverty which have informed these models. The subsequent sections provide an analysis of poverty and different livelihoods in northern Kenya. Finally, the value chains approach is used to identify promising interventions for developing markets and enabling the very poor to engage in them.
Read MoreFood security is a common issue across many contexts where a value chain approach is employed. This briefing paper identifies challenges, solutions and emerging good practices in using the value chain approach to improve food security. It focuses on the synergies where the value chain approach can contribute towards food security objectives and vice versa.
Read MoreThis toolkit equips value chain development programmers with a set of tools that can be used for situation assessments, value chain selection and value chain analysis. The document presents an overview of each tool listed, including a brief description of its relevance to reaching the very poor in the context of a value chain development program. It also presents brief examples of how each tool can be applied and used to inform programming decisions.
Read MoreThis is one in a series of USAID-commissioned case studies that examined interventions and approaches to creating pathways out of poverty that “pushed” the very poor towards productive engagement in markets and/or “pulled” the poor into markets. This case study looks at how the PSNP Plus project in Ethiopia piloted interventions to sustainably graduate households from dependence on cash and food transfers.
Read MoreThis discussion paper provides guidance on how value chain and market development core principles can be adopted when working directly with the very poor. This paper is applicable to initiatives aiming to ‘reach down’ further and include the very poor in—or graduate the very poor more intentionally into—economic growth interventions, thereby creating a “pathway out of poverty.”
Read MoreThis case study reviews a chickpea production and marketing project implemented by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in the Mwanza region of northern Tanzania. The project facilitated agricultural production and marketing support to savings groups comprised of chickpea farmers. This document presents the preliminary findings of the project in an effort to explore the sustainability and replicability of this integrated model.
Read MoreThis document summarizes the findings of a Learning Initiative carried out by Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) with support from the MasterCard Foundation, to study the integration of Savings Groups (SGs) and other developmental activities. It looked at nine projects that integrated SGs with other activities such as linkages to agricultural input and output markets, health education, and marketing of social products (i.e. solar lamps).
Read More