Testing Tools for Assessing Systemic Change: Synthesis Paper

  • Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: September 2016

Building on the work of the Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) activity on measuring indications of systemic change, this paper summarizes the results of a multi-year research effort to understand the potential of a set of tools – Standard Measurement Tools, Outcome Harvesting, SenseMaker, and Social Network Analysis – to measure systemic change and provides practical guidance for practitioners.

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Practical Tools for Measuring System Health

  • Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: August 2016

This 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.

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Scaling Impact: Cambodia MSME Ex-Post Assessment

  • Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO), United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: 2016

Over 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.

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Testing Tools for Assessing Systemic Change: Outcome Harvesting – The ALCP Project in the Georgian Dairy Industry

  • Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO), United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: 2016

This paper summarizes MSA’s test of the outcome harvesting approach as a tool to measure systemic change. In May and June 2016, MSA applied outcome harvesting to the Alliances Lesser Caucasus Programme (ALCP)’s work in the dairy industry in Georgia. In so doing, MSA adapted the tool to be sensitive to identifying systemic change outcomes. Instead of focusing on systemic changes within the market system, this application innovatively looked at systemic changes in the geographic areas where ALCP operated and hence identified a much broader set of systemic changes.

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Policy brief for donors and decision makers when designing and measuring the results of gender-responsive PSD programs: Key lessons and recommendations drawn from a pilot study of BMZfunded, GIZ-implemented interventions

  • Partner: Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED)
  • Publication Type: Brief
  • Date: 2016

This brief presents policy recommendations based on findings from a pilot study conducted by Marketshare Associates in Egypt and Morocco on the household level results of GIZ implemented, BMZ-funded private sector development (PSD) programs. The study design integrates innovative qualitative household level monitoring tools to develop a more complete picture of if, how and why interventions result in empowerment.

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Women’s Economic Empowerment in the MENA Region: Rapid Assessment of Household Level Results

  • Partner: GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit)
  • Publication Type: Report
  • Date: March 2016

This report presents findings from a pilot study using a qualitative Rapid Assessment tool designed to integrate household-level indicators of WEE into results measurement systems. It synthesizes findings from interviews conducted with women beneficiaries in Egypt and Morocco, and provides a preliminary understanding of household-level results of BMZ-funded women’s economic empowerment activities.

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Measuring Achievements of Private Sector Development in Conflict-Affected Environments: Practical Guidelines for Implementing the DCED Standard

  • Partner: Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED)
  • Publication Type: Toolkit
  • Date: February 2015

This paper provides guidance for measuring results in conflict-affected environments (CAEs) using the DCED Standard, a framework for measuring and managing results of private sector development programs.

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Measuring the Results of Women’s Economic Empowerment in Private Sector Development: Guidelines for Practitioners

  • Partner: Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Women’s Entrepreneurship Development Working Group
  • Publication Type: Toolkit
  • Date: July 2014

Most guidelines on women’s economic empowerment focus on theory of guiding implementation practices but not on measurement practices tailored to private sector development (PSD) programs. Moreover, more PSD programs focus on measuring enterprise-level results instead of household level results. This document presents the key findings on measurement practices of women’s economic empowerment specifically.

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DCED Webinar: Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment

  • Partner: Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED)
  • Publication Type: Webinar
  • Date: June 17, 2014

Why measure women’s economic empowerment? Why are household level indicators important for measuring changes in women’s economic empowerment? In this webinar, Erin Markel presents guidelines, good practices, and lessons learned for Measuring Results of Women’s Economic Empowerment in Private Sector Development.

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Measuring Job Creation in Private Sector Development

  • Partner: Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED)
  • Publication Type: Working Paper
  • Date: June 2014

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.

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