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
- Team: Tim Sparkman and Kim Beevers
- Recommended Citation: MarketShare Associates. Testing Tools for Assessing Systemic Change: Network Analysis – The SOBA project and Sierra Leone's vegetable market system. Washington: USAID Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO), 2016.
Network analysis is a tool for mapping relationships between actors in a system, and has therefore recently gained interest by the market development community as a way to understand system dynamics and design more effective, targeted interventions. 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. The DfID funded Sierra Leone Opportunities for Business Action (SOBA) programme, which hosted the analysis and provided data collection and analytical support, intended to use that information for partner selection, performance monitoring, indicator design, and impact measurements over time.
This research attempted to evaluate the utility of network analysis for the market systems practitioner community, seeking to gain insight into market system dynamics given the ability of network analysis to finely parse relationships between agents in a system.