Strengthen systems for development impact
We apply systems-thinking approaches across development agencies and the private sector, helping to improve market dynamics, opportunities, and agency to create a more equitable world.
Explore Focus Areas
Discover how we’re applying actionable insights to unlock new solutions.
Market Systems Development
We support your team to integrate wider economic analysis and unseen behavioral insights into your market-based work
Why it matters
As a thought leader in market systems, we work with teams to unlock hard to solve problems and stimulate systemic change. From agriculture to health to low-income housing, we work in diverse market systems to engage the private sector, unlock innovation and generate lasting impact. Our work will enable you to diagnose root causes, address the ‘less seen’ rules that drive behavior, quickly test your potential for systemic change and measure impact.
What we do
- Capture fast cycle data on leading indications of systems change to adapt and improve programming
- Conduct systems level studies to rapidly test for systemic impact potential and identify opportunities to target high-potential areas and sub-sectors
- Integrate behavioral and sociocultural analysis into market research, assessments and design
- Co-create, negotiate and facilitate implementation with the private sector
- Provide strategic advice to market systems implementers to amplify impact
Featured Project
Systems change for youth skills and entrepreneurship
Partner: MasterCard Foundation & International Youth Foundation
Location: Tanzania, Mozambique, Morocco & Baltimore
Focus Area: Market Systems Development
Services: Research and Strategic Advisory
Relevant Publications:
MSA helped the International Youth Foundation transition as an organization to utilizing a market systems development (MSD) approach, focused on creating positive youth development. This was a global initiative whereby MSA worked over two years across multiple regions with IYF headquarters and their MasterCard Foundation-funded VIA project to: train staff in MSD, advise on their new MSD global strategy, develop youth-centric market systems analysis and mapping toolkits, pilot and train staff in using the toolkits as well as carrying out various youth-centered research and implementation support. MSA used innovative tools such as Value Network Mapping, Influencer Maps and Norms Mapping to understand systems, design sustainability strategies and identify and pilot initial interventions.
Client Testimonial
“MSA produced technically strong and accessible materials, and their workshops have been clear and engaging. MSA’s approach to systems change is practical and applicable. It fit well with our programmatic needs.”
– Tom Brownlee, International Youth Foundation
Jobs & Trade
We co-create with the private sector to stimulate job creation, competitiveness and decent work.
Why it matters
MSA is a trusted partner in understanding the needs and incentives of the private sector. We work to ensure you obtain the insights needed to drive sustainable growth, promote job creation, enhance trade practices and advance decent work for all.
What we do
- Design and negotiate partnerships with the private sector
- Build business cases to help private sector partners understand the direct and indirect value of their social impact work in terms of commercial benefits and support alternative business model designs
- Measure and assess labor market dynamics, outcomes, and wider job creation impacts
- Design and evaluate sustainable strategies to promote competitive, efficient, and inclusive trade
Featured Project
ILO Labor Market Assessments
Partner: International Labour Organization (ILO)
Location: Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Djibouti and Ethiopia
Focus Area: Jobs & Trade
Service: Action Research
Relevant Publications:
MSA worked together with ILO to conduct comprehensive labour market assessments. The project works across five-countries to conduct research, data collection, and analysis in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda. The team has conducted over 2,000 quantitative interviews with labour migrants; 30 focus group discussions with local communities; and 200 key informant interviews with high-level government personnel across the five countries. These results will contribute to the ILO and the IGAD member governments’ understanding of the current state of labour markets, particularly around labour migration within the IGAD region. The reports will be used as part of the ILO’s role in supporting IGAD on the free movement of persons protocol in the region. Importantly, these insights are filling data gaps around labour migration, particularly in environments characterized by data shortages and lack of information to inform policymaking.
Economic Empowerment
We believe economic empowerment must combine access to economic opportunities with individual agency for sustainable impact.
Why it matters
We believe that enhancing women’s and young people’s ability to make decisions, act on opportunities and influence their surroundings are essential elements to creating positive and more inclusive feedback loops within market systems. We work with you to target changes to networks, relationships and entrenched social norms to unlock economic opportunities for women and youth to succeed at work, at home and within their communities.
What we do
- Integrate social norm diagnostics and empowerment principles into assessments, action research and implementation tools
- Design private sector engagement strategies to support women and youth as workers, consumers, producers and suppliers
- Build the business case to help private sector partners understand the commercial benefits of working with and hiring women and youth, and support alternative business model designs
- Design and negotiate partnerships with the private sector to empower women and youth
- Measure changes in social norms, networks and relationships, power dynamics, empowerment outcomes, and wider community impacts
Featured Project
Spring Accelerator
Partner: Coffey, USAID, DFID, DFAT and Nike Foundation
Location: Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tanzania and London
Focus Area: Economic Empowerment
Service: Evaluation
Relevant Publications:
- Empowerment-Forward Poverty Mapping: Real-Time Learning from the Arab Women’s Enterprise Fund’s Disadvantaged Assessment
- The Social Norms Factor: How Gendered Social Norms Influence How We Empower Women in Market Systems Development
- Women’s Economic Empowerment in the MENA Region: Rapid Assessment of Household Level Results
The SPRING Accelerator, funded by DFID, Nike Foundation, USAID and DFAT, aimed to create ‘girl impact’ by running accelerators and providing links to capital and mentors for early stage enterprises whose business models create positive impact for adolescent girls. SPRING operated across nine countries in East Africa and South Asia.
As part of the evaluation team, MSA designed and implemented processes and tools for tracking and evaluating business and program performance, and assessing data quality. MSA developed a Most Significant Change in Business Performance tool. This tool considers what changed in the business, visually mapping changes from most to least significant. The tool also evaluates the impact to the business because of SPRING (e.g. better value proposition, increased revenue, enhanced girl-friendly human resources) and additional contributing factors, including other funding, government legislation and policy changes.
Financial Inclusion
We enhance access to financial services to better serve entrepreneurs
Why it matters
Access to relevant and accessible financial services is key to success for entrepreneurs. By working with our team, you will better understand the hidden rules behind the behaviors of consumers and financial service institutions. This will help you drive product innovation and expansion into frontier markets with new customer segments.
What we do
- Diagnose the behaviors of customers through cutting edge market research
- Work alongside local implementing and FSP partners to integrate consumer insights into product design and new business models
- Design and evaluate strategies and interventions to promote entrepreneurial success and resilience
Featured Project
Gender Diagnostic on Social Norms
Partner: CGAP, World Bank
Location: Turkey, Lebanon and Washington DC
Focus Area: Financial Inclusion & Economic Empowerment
Service: Action Research & Strategic Advisory
Relevant Publications:
MSA developed a methodology and toolkit for the World Bank to carry out rigorous, action-oriented gender social norms diagnostics to inform design, intervention and policy decisions in financial inclusion across the Arab world. Initial tool testing was conducted in Southern Turkey, primarily with Arab and refugee populations. Further testing will take place in select Arab countries. The outcomes of the field research informed operational and policy recommendations on how to address socio-cultural and socio-economic issues influencing women’s use of conventional and digital financial products. The research also resulted in a practitioner toolkit providing guidance to financial inclusion programs on how to carry out this type of research, and how to incorporate the findings, in practical ways, into their interventions and policy design.
Impact Investing
We work with investors, accelerators and entrepreneurs to screen, forecast and measure for impact.
Why it matters
We believe public resources and philanthropy are not enough to solve poverty on their own. There is a pressing need to unlock private investment capital to expand social impact solutions. By working with our team, you will more efficiently screen and forecast the impact potential of your investments, report on impact using global best practices and build the capacity of your investments to report on impact.
What we do
- Design and build out impact measurement frameworks and systems
- Select and execute on impact metrics
- Develop impact screening tools to complement commercial tools for investment selection
- Build the capacity of companies to report on impact
- Develop strategy and measurement for blended finance or joint public and private investments
Featured Project
AECF Impact Contribution
Partner: AECF, DFID
Location: London
Focus Area: Impact Investing
Service: Monitoring & Evaluation
MSA designed the Simplified Attribution Tool (SAT) to address the issue of disaggregating the development impact between co-investors. The SAT provides an objective approach to the allocation of a company’s enterprise impact, taking into account different types of financial and non-financial investments, using a scoring approach to determine the allocation of attributable impact according to the type of investment contribution and its potential value to the company. The tool responded to a broad consensus across the industry that such a model was needed, where double-counting of investment impacts are commonplace between co-investors and often where co-investors report to the same investment vehicle or donor.
