Blog

Najib Seguya of the Feed the Future Uganda Youth Leadership in Agriculture (YLA) activity’s Strategic Activities Fund team discusses key considerations to keep in mind when designing a pay-for-results (PfR) program, also known as performance-based financing.

Village Enterprise works to end extreme poverty in rural Africa by providing groups of three entrepreneurs with seed capital, training, ongoing mentoring, and support for the formation of Business Savings Groups. This post highlights a $5.32m payment-for-results project in the form of a Development Impact Bond.

USAID’s Value Chains for Rural Development project uses an inclusive, market systems approach to support smallholder producers, farmer groups, agribusinesses, and community organizations.

In August, Marketlinks is focusing on the Pay-for-Results model in global development. This post from NextBillion offers insights on how and when to use a results-based finance model.

As Marketlinks examines Pay-for-Results this August, check out this blog from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) highlighting compact designed to reduce poverty through economic growth in Cabo-Verde.

This post shares an overview of the Digital Credit and Women's Economic Empowerment Convening 2019 and introduces a resource by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) that explores four steps in conducting impact evaluations for measuring women's empowerment.

In August, Marketlinks is focusing on the Pay-for-Results model in global development. This post from the World Bank blog highlights an upcoming project to incentivize dairy suppliers in Tanzania to deliver input bundles for smallholder dairy farmers.

“Pay-for-results” is trending! There is a swelling chorus in the development community about the potential of pay-for-results (PforR) to increase accountability, foster innovation, and stretch scarce development dollars. With the growing need to “do more with less” and demonstrate results when using development dollars, PforR is a compelling solution — one which USAID and other donors will inevitably want to see more of.

Data protection is a primary focus of the humanitarian sector. In late 2016, USAID supported a digital cash transfer preparedness grant meant to help NGOs be equally well-prepared to offer (digital) cash as to offer other modalities of assistance (e.g. in-kind items).

This post highlights critical questions about youth entrepreneurs and how to build an inclusive system that supports them through both financial and non-financial means.

This post highlights two youth dairy farmers through Feed the Future Kenya Investment Mechanism Program with the support of USAID Kenya.

This post spotlights an interview with Lala Faiz and Cameron Khosrowshahi from the USAID INVEST team on mobilizing private capital.

Blended finance continues to gain traction. Used properly, blended finance channels private capital into areas where it can have a positive impact while generating solid returns. It develops markets and builds local capacity. However, blended finance is far from meeting its full potential.

This post offers recommendations on managing the shifts in culture, management and partnering needed when a project shifts from providing direct services to a facilitative market systems approach.

In Nigeria, a Pay-for-Results prize competition incents use of Aflasafe to combat aflatoxin contamination and drive demand for higher-quality maize.

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 post introduces a paper from the Market Development Facility that explores the effect of increased household income on women's economic empowerment in the context of household dynamics, and seeks to understand how access to economic inputs, information, opportunities or services impacts agency.

Most developing countries need more 'fiscal space' to finance the investments required to develop and become self-reliant. In this blog post, USAID's Steve Rozner argues that when it comes to creating fiscal space, it's the size of the pie, not the slice that matters.

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

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.

Among the entrepreneurs supported by USAID's Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship (PACE) Initiative, those businesses that were owned by women grew both revenues and jobs significantly faster.

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

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.