Blog

Growing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is an important goal of much donor assistance. However, development practitioners do not always articulate theoretical frameworks linking interventions to outcomes of sales or employment growth.

This is the second blog the Feed the Future Partnering for Innovation series on building private sector resilience. Stay tuned for the next blog in the private series, as we look at an example of how a more resilient company can provide critical technologies and value-added services after a natural disaster.

This is the second blog post on what Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) can learn from market systems.

This post shares a blog from the Learning Lab about how the practice of market segmentation could benefit DRG programming.

Applied political economy analysis can offer insights leading to recommendations about how to influence key decision-makers, thereby facilitating the change necessary to foster a more conducive enabling environment for market systems to thrive.

USAID's Economic Competitiveness Project is helping to provide technical assistance to micro and small companies in innovation, technology adoption, manufacturing practices, marketing, and more.

Mike Ducker answers remaining questions from the EcoSystem Forum on Building Social Capital.

Strengthening grain contracts in Mali has the potential to open up farmers' access to products and services they need to operate and grow their businesses, achieving key agriculture development results in the process.

Strengthening the private sector to meet smallholder farmers’ needs is a sustainable option that reduces the cost of long-term aid in at-risk regions.

Learning from an initiative to help private maternity homes in Ghana survive the departure of the primary midwife-owner.

Women lead approximately one-third of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in emerging markets but remain disproportionately underserved. They often face less favorable terms for financing and limited access to essential resources needed to build, sustain, and grow their businesses.

USAID is accepting submissions to the annual Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) Case Competition until Friday, April 12.

Watch a new video from The SEEP Network to learn more about their collaborative learning network.

Market systems that inhibit productivity growth and depress livelihoods are familiar enough across the developing world. Barriers to improvement that turn out to be fundamentally political are two-a-penny.

This week, Chief Economist Dr. Louise Fox, and Susan Wilder, Policy Advisor on finance and private sector development, celebrate the launch of the Agency’s new Private Sector Engagement Policy with a blog on why economic analysis is critical for effective implementation.

How can implementers use blended finance to mobilize capital? Chemonics and LixCap share their experiences with sequencing and explore its potential.

Congratulations to the three winners from the Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) competition! These case studies demonstrate the use of CLA in the economic growth sector.

Reflecting on emerging themes from the 2018 Making Cents International Global Youth Economic Opportunities Summit, here are four steps to promote new economic opportunities for girls.

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.

Learn about innovations in agricultural index insurance to help build a future of prosperity and resilience for small-scale farmers and pastoralists worldwide.

USAID and UC Davis are partnering to establish the world's first quality certification for agricultural index insurance in Kenya. The QUIIC certification will help ensure that products for small-scale farmers across East Africa truly can promote long-term resilience.

USAID awarded a grant to CrossBoundary, LLC, based in Washington, D.C., to form a public-private partnership that provides catalytic financing for businesses in Sierra Leone. This financing will support adoption of solar energy practices and reduce demand on the country’s power grid.

An innovative approach to developing a sustainable seed system in cassava that simultaneously incentivizes all the stakeholders across the value chain is being implemented in Nigeria.