Blog

This post explores how global development organizations can mitigate food and agricultural systems during the COVID-19 crisis, using a market systems approach.

The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth recently collaborated with Mercy Corp's virtual mentoring program, MicroMentor, to deliver an Arabic platform in Jordan and the MENA region.

This blog post explores how one USAID initiative got banks on board to provide $1 billion in services in rural Colombia and how this approach can be applied in different contexts.

COVID-19 is a crisis that will have a global economic impact for months to come. This April, we wanted to highlight a few blog posts that show how practitioners around the world are stepping up to support market systems.

OECD Development Matters explains how the Blended Finance Principles provide best practices to push private capital into SDG-aligned projects, programs, and markets.

USAID is strengthening the fishing sector in El Salvador to help achieve self-reliance in coastal communities, reducing the need to migrate.

Blended finance is the strategic use of development funds, such as those from government aid and philanthropic sources, to mobilize private capital for social and environment results, such as improving infrastructure, education, agriculture, healthcare, and more.

This post is part two in a two-part series about market systems resilience (MSR) and highlights three major learnings on good practice for MSR.

This post shares thoughts from Dr. Michael Kremer on an experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. Dr. Kremer directs USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures program and is a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

How PNG delivers power to its populace is important to the nation. The Development Strategic Plan calls for carbon neutrality by 2050.

Given the primacy of seed for agricultural sector resilience and growth, development actors are eager to address seed needs in the wake of conflict. This post explores how to tailor those investments for fragile contexts in a way consistent with long-term seed market development.

The Feed the Future team aims to foster the breeding of high-yielding, climate-resilient chickpea within the context of user-preferred traits. Their upstream activities are predicated on the need to facilitate downstream phenotyping and breeding activities.

With 30% of children under five years old stunted, there are critical vitamin and mineral deficiencies among the poor population in Haiti.

The vast majority of food grown in Africa is by smallholder farmers. Implementing these four recommendations will speed up the process of putting improved seed in the hands of Africa’s food growers permanently.

A constraint to raising agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa is the lack of commercial availability of high-quality seed of improved modern crop varieties. Stakeholders have made a great effort to develop regional variety catalogs to increase the supply of high-quality seed.

Nine projects are funded by NWO-WOTRO to strengthen the Netherlands-CGIAR research partnership on generating insights that contribute to improving seed systems in focus regions within Asia and Sub-Sahara Africa.

CIAT supports the development of seed systems uniting actors along the value chain to create sustainable seed systems and spur links with formal seed producers.

Feed the Future, a USAID program that invests in private-sector partnerships to commercialize agricultural innovations in smallholder markets, conducted a study in 2016 that distilled lessons learned on commercializing seed in smallholder markets in sub-Saharan Africa

Nearly 75% of the Guatemalan population is employed through small- and medium enterprises, yet local laws restrict credit unions' abilities to provide loans to SMEs.

This month, Marketlinks is focused on seed-related enabling environment and market systems. Share your submissions to be included in our round-up.

Using a decentralized water treatment and distribution system, Jim Chu, the founder and CEO of dloHaiti, is bringing safe, affordable water to thousands on the island. Chu recently participated in diaspora engagement roadshows hosted by USAID INVEST, which encouraged members of the Haitian diaspora to invest in the country’s private sector. Jim Chu loves flying. The Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor began paragliding in 1993. Over the last two decades, he’s participated in the sport all around the world.

The Feed the Future Malawi Ag Diversification Activity worked with partners to develop an input bundle and a loan package to help farmers increase their soybean and groundnut yields.

In Pakistan, promising small and medium-sized enterprises are turning their innovative ideas into reality — and improving livelihoods — with a boost from a special grant fund.

Feed the Future Cambodia Harvest II is a five-year project, now at its halfway point, working to help Cambodia accelerate horticulture sector growth and strengthen the horticulture market system. This case study describes Harvest II’s blended buyer-led and market systems development approach, citing examples of progress to date and posing several learning questions about the project moving forward.

This post is the fourth in a series exploring how a partnership facility can be an interface between donor-funded programs and the private sector. It reflects on how FTF Inova's experience is relevant for other MSD programs.