The Great Opportunity and Challenge of MSD Ex-Posts: 4 Takeaways from a Rapid Harvest of Insights
- Partner: USAID
- Publication Type: Blog
- Date: August 5, 2021
- Team: Ben Fowler and Benjamin Simmons-Telep
- Recommended Citation: Fowler, Ben (MarketShare Associates) and Benjamin Simmons-Telep. “The Great Opportunity and Challenge of MSD Ex-Posts: 4 Takeaways from a Rapid Harvest of Insights,” Agrilinks (blog), August 5, 2021. https://agrilinks.org/post/great-opportunity-and-challenge-msd-ex-posts-4-takeaways-rapid-harvest-insights.
Ex-post evaluations are a key way to build the evidence base for the scalability and sustainability of the market systems development approach, yet few have been funded through to completion. Building on renewed interest in ex-post evaluations, the DAI-implemented USAID Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP) Activity plans to support several Market Systems Development (MSD) ex-posts studies over the coming years. Doing so will require understanding what has worked well in other ex-post studies, while also innovating to reflect the challenging aspects of evaluating MSD programming.
The blog summarizes some of the early learning that we’ve had under MSP’s M&E and CLA learning stream about how to design and conduct them. We looked at 23 publications and interviewed specialists at USAID Center for Ag-Led Growth and the PSE Hub; the Springfield Centre, the Expanding the Reach of Impact Evaluations (ERIE) Consortium, and more.
