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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Reconsidering the Concept of Scale in Market Systems Development
- Partner: ACDI/VOCA
- Publication Type: Report
- Date: January 2016
Economic development programs are increasingly taking a systems approach. This paper suggests that the shift to a systemic perspective calls into question the utility of using scale as a key measure of project success, at least in its current usage. While understanding a project’s outreach still has a place, it has been traditionally overused as the primary means of assessing a project’s impact; a use which creates perverse incentives for projects trying to take a systemic approach.
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Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment Beyond Production in Market Systems Programs
- Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
- Publication Type: Brief
- Date: 2016
This brief examines how and why practitioners are achieving women's economic empowerment (WEE) outcomes through interventions that seek to promote and empower women in agricultural roles beyond production. More specifically, this brief presents a survey of promising strategies and recommendations for further investigation.
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Measuring Women’s Economic Empowerment in Market Systems
- Partner: The SEEP Network, UN Women, and Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
- Publication Type: Webinar
- Date: August 28, 2015
Gender inequality and the process of empowerment are dynamic and complex, as are the market systems in which women work. This webinar explored practices in measuring women's economic empowerment such as innovations in measuring agency, gender norms, and gendered behavior changes at the firm and household level, as well as insights from implementing these practices when working with the private sector.
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Workforce Development Programming: Economic Strengthening and Adolescent Girls
- Partner: The SEEP Network
- Publication Type: Webinar
- Date: August 4, 2015
This webinar focuses on understanding what type of programming works in reaching and engaging adolescents in economic and financial activity, with a special interest in those programs that focus on girls and young women. The webinar explores experiences from the World Bank's Adolescent Girls Initiative (AGI), a public-private partnership that was launched in 2008 and now spans eight countries, as well as the CYFI School Bank program.
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Six Ways Women Add Value to Business
- Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
- Publication Type: Blog Post
- Date: July 7, 2015
Through research under the USAID-funded Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) project, we have found that implementers who successfully persuade businesses to adopt inclusive business practices to empower women often focus on “making the business case.” They also stress the importance of being able to speak the language of the private sector.
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Making the Business Case: Women’s Economic Empowerment in Market Systems Development
- Partner: Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO)
- Publication Type: Report
- Date: March 2015
This paper, based on extensive research and interviews, provides the rationale that market systems facilitation practitioners can use to engage private sector firms in efforts to empower women. From identifying partners to articulating the mutually beneficial value of women's inclusion, the paper offers guidance and real-world examples to help companies empower women working at every level of the economy.
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