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Story Originally posted on NextBillion.

This blog outlines the rationale behind the business cases developed through the USAID Mozambique Feed the Future Agricultural Innovations Activity (FTF Inova).

FROM SILICON VALLEY STARTUP TO LANDMARK ACQUISITION Access to technology is an essential component to development, especially in Africa. Africans use cheap mobile phones to pay their bills, conduct small business, and make calls anywhere and everywhere. However, even a small mobile phone is not useful if power is not available to charge it. Eighty percent of African households lack electric power, which limits opportunities to access information and mobile money, as well as business and educational opportunities. 

Field research from from around the world is finding that resilience to climate-related shocks can encourage rural families to invest more for higher productivity, creating new opportunities for greater prosperity.

The White House–led Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative brings new energy and a comprehensive approach to our mission at USAID.

USAID/Mozambique engaged in programming, assessing, and leading critical climate change technical assistance activities that support low-emission development strategies (LEDS), building climate change resilience, and strengthening local capacity.

This is the third blog in the Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation building private sector resilience blog series.

As USAID programs evolve to adopt a market systems approach, implementing partners must adapt their monitoring and evaluation approaches to better capture dynamics of complex systems change.

MEL is not meant to focus just on project performance. Thus, the USAID-funded Feed the Future Mozambique Agricultural Innovations Activity has developed new MEL tools to assess whether business innovations are improving market system inclusiveness for smallholder farmers.

A Mozambique-based wholesaler of agriculture inputs and mechanization equipment received investment support through the Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation program.

At ACDI/VOCA's Amplifying our Impact event at USAID, ACDI/VOCA highlighted several projects pivoting to a market systems approach across a variety of different geographies and contexts.

This blog outlines three innovative strategies the Feed the Future Mozambique Inova Activity used to establish a culture of learning within the project team and between the project and its partners to promote the internalization of market systems principles.

Our next two vignettes on the trail to mobilizing private capital have arrived! Mull over these as we hunker down for the night.

Does the existing data vindicate donors’ reliance on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as effective vehicles of economic growth? Yes. Is it reliable and valid? Probably not.