Recent Publications & Learning

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TV, TEDx, and Tweets: Measuring the Impacts of a Multi-Pronged Edutainment Program in the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan

  • Partner: World Bank Group IFC
  • Publication Type: Policy Research Working Paper
  • Date: March 2025

This report was produced as part of the IFC Central Asia Financial Inclusion project funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. The report would not have been possible without the contributions of our colleagues from MarketShare Associates, for their invaluable support in conducting the monitoring and evaluation of the campaign, the data analysis, and preparing the findings report and related graphics; and M-Vector, the field survey team responsible for the data collection, cleaning, and validation

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New Evaluation Results from the East Africa Living Income Program (EALI) in Uganda and Kenya

  • Partner: IDH
  • Publication Type: Blog
  • Date: June 24, 2026

This endline evaluation assesses the extent to which the IDH EALI program contributed to improving farmer incomes and advancing awareness and commitment toward the Living Income concept across Uganda and Kenya.

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Adapting through bricolage: building resilience in Northeast Nigeria

  • Partner: SPARC
  • Publication Type: Policy Brief
  • Date: June 25, 2026

This policy brief explores how communities use the creative recombination of available resources, skills, and relationships – or bricolage – to respond to shocks and cope with uncertainty.

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BAND and How Social Norms Can Make or Break Interventions

  • Partner:
  • Publication Type: Blog
  • Date: March 1, 2025

This blog explores how behavioral analysis and social norms diagnostics can help implementers and practitioners design more effective interventions.

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Why We Need Formative Approaches When Measuring Women’s Empowerment in Agricultural Market Systems

  • Partner: Feed The Future
  • Publication Type: Research
  • Date: October 24, 2022

The article argues that traditional methods of measuring women’s empowerment in agricultural programs often fall short because they rely on rigid, predefined indicators. Instead, the authors advocate for formative approaches, which involve continuous, context-sensitive learning and adaptation. These approaches help capture the complex, dynamic nature of empowerment, considering local gender norms and market systems. By integrating qualitative and participatory methods, programs can better understand and respond to women’s real needs, leading to more meaningful and sustainable empowerment outcomes.

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Testing tools for assessing systemic change: Network Analysis

  • 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 Network Analysis approach as a tool to measure systemic change. In late 2015, a researcher from MarketShare Associates with the Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) activity conducted a network analysis of traders within the vegetable market system in Sierra Leone, to evaluate network analysis as a technique for describing market system dynamics, evaluating systemic change over time, and identifying potential leverage points for intervention by market systems programs.

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Is the ‘MSD hockey stick’ a fable or a fact? Early lessons from the USAID ex-post series

  • Partner: BEAM Exchange, Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP), DAI
  • Publication Type: Blog
  • Date: November 12, 2024

This blog explores insights from USAID’s Ex-Post Evaluation Series—highlighting the transformative impact that Market Systems Development (MSD) can drive across programs.

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Do the Impacts of MSD Activities Sustain and Scale After Close? An Evidence Synthesis from Recent Ex-Post Evaluations

  • Partner: USAID Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships (MSP), DAI
  • Publication Type: Learning Brief
  • Date: October 4, 2024

This evidence synthesis captures findings from USAID’s ex-post studies in Ghana and Senegal, and bolsters the evidence base for market systems development.

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Improving Women Pastoralists’ Access to Animal Health Services: Recommendations in Ethiopia and Kenya

  • Partner: CoWater SPARC
  • Publication Type: Blog
  • Date: September 9, 2024

This blog provides evidence-based recommendations to improve women pastoralists’ access to animal health, using the experiences of pastoral communities in the drylands of Ethiopia and Kenya.

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Bridging the Gender Gap in Animal Health Services as a Resilience Pathway: Insights from Pastoralist Communities in Ethiopia and Kenya

  • Partner: CoWater SPARC
  • Publication Type: Blog
  • Date: September 9, 2024

This blog explores the dynamics of women’s and men’s access to and use of animal health services (AHS) among pastoralist communities.

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