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This post was authored by Kati Suominen, Founder and CEO, Nextrade Group and Technical Director, eTrade Alliance. This January, the Alliance for eTrade Development (“eTrade Alliance”) will be taking over Marketlinks, sharing experiences from its two years of implementation and making the case for why enabling ecommerce should be at the forefront of the development agenda.

Earlier this month, I spoke with market systems development (MSD) expert Mike Klassen and two MSD leaders, Nina FitzSimons CEO of PRISMA, a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade-funded program in Indonesia, and Bidowra Khan, Team Lead for Social Inclusion and Support Market Systems for the USAID Feed the Future Rice and Diversified Crops Activity in B

Reflections from Katie Garcia, Deputy Director of USAID’s Private Sector Engagement Hub, and Kristin O’Planick, Market Systems Team Lead in USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security. There is a growing amount of convergence between PSE and MSD. For practitioners of either approach, there is value in learning more about the tools and techniques of the other to see how they can be useful in advancing the shared goal of transformational change.

Throughout December, Marketlinks has shared the top market-led development content from 2021, including the most-read blogs and the most

In emerging markets, entrepreneurs of growth-stage companies often struggle to access financing. Debt is hard to come by and securing equity often requires giving up significant company ownership in return.

An abridged version of this article was published in Devex. Read it here. By Vanessa Holcomb Mann and Jessamy Nichols, USAID INVEST Donors like USAID have added a powerful tool to their toolbox: catalytic funding.

By Yasmine Williams, INVEST Senior Communications Advisor South Africa is home to millions of small and medium-sized enterprises. These businesses create jobs and drive economic growth — they are vibrant, innovative, and undercapitalized.

By Lauren Yang, USAID INVEST Communications

Many women-led small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in West Africa fall into the “missing middle.” They are too large for funding from microfinance institutions and too small and risky for banks and other sources of traditional finance. WIC Capital, a $20 million investment fund managed by the Women’s Investment Club Senegal, seeks to exclusively target women-led, early-stage businesses in West Africa. 

Institutional investors like pension funds have deep pools of capital. If even a small percentage were invested in African infrastructure, it would go a long way towards helping African countries finance their own development, and providing U.S. investors with higher returns than what is possible in developed markets.

This post was written by Lauren Yang, USAID INVEST Communications. Gender Lens Investing has gained momentum as a means to push for a more equitable spread of capital, generating much-needed financial returns and benefits for women. However, the need goes beyond just getting capital into the hands of women — how can businesses make gender equity not merely an add-on, but a fully integrated part of their operations?

By Emily Langhorne, USAID INVEST In 2019, Chicago Public School Teachers’ Pension and Retirement Fund made its first commitments on the African continent. Since 2017, Chief Investment Officer Angela Miller-May participated in the U.S. Government’s Mobilizing Institutional Investors to Develop Africa’s Infrastructure (MiDA) Program. Through the program, Miller-May learned about the continent’s investment opportunities, and, for the first time in her life, she visited Africa.

Senior market systems development (MSD) leaders create the culture and space for experimentation, adaptive management, and learning. These Chiefs of Party (CoP), Team Leaders, Deputy Chiefs of Party, etc. can play a critical bridge between technical and operational departments within a program. They also set the tone for prioritizing diversity and inclusion.

CEO of Development Partners International (DPI) Runa Alam talks about the history of Pan-African private equity, the potential for institutional capital to drive the continent’s development, and the role of the Prosper Africa initiative in catalyzing two-way trade and investment between the United States and African nations.

All month long, Marketlinks is spotlighting its top market-led development content from 2021.

Over the past year, donors, implementers, and other development actors have shared their technical learning, best practices, and insights with the Marketlinks community to help advance inclusive, sustained, and resilient economic growth. All month long, we’ll be spotlighting the top Marketlinks content of 2021, including blogs, resources, and webinars.

USAID is supporting renewable energy in Vietnam — through strategic, discrete interventions to remove barriers for the private sector. By Kristin Kelly Jangraw, INVEST Director of Communications

For most West Africans, homeownership is out of reach. Rapid population growth and urbanization have created a housing shortage, exacerbated by the lack of access to affordable mortgage loans to finance purchases. With support from USAID INVEST, the Caisse Regionale de Refinancement Hypothecaire (CRRH) is bringing a new investment opportunity to U.S. markets that offers investors attractive financial and social returns — and West Africans the resources to make homeownership a reality. By Lauren Yang, INVEST Communications Advisor

This month, Marketlinks is highlighting the best of 2021, including the standout learning and knowledge-sharing content that has resonated the most with our community.

This post is the third in a three-part Market Corner series looking at health systems and why health professionals are turning to systems thinking and market systems development (MSD) approaches in their work. Access part one and part two.

This post is authored by Susan Rae Ross, Sr. Private Sector Engagement Advisor, Office of Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition USAID Global Health Bureau; Dr. Folake Olayinka, Immunization Team Leader Office of Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition, USAID Global Health Bureau; Dr. Gaurav Sharma, Sr. Maternal, Newborn, Child Health Technical Advisor; and Dr. Christopher Morgan, Sr. Immunization Technical Advisor for the MOMENTUM Private Healthcare Delivery Project.

This post is the second in a two-part Market Corner series looking at health systems and why health professionals are turning to systems thinking and market systems development (MSD) approaches in their work. Read part one here.

This post is authored by Susan Rae Ross, Sr. Private Sector Engagement Advisor, Office of Maternal/Child Health and Nutrition, USAID Global Health Bureau; Dr. Folake Olayinka, Immunization Team Leader, Office of Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition, USAID Global Health Bureau; Dr. Gaurav Sharma, Sr. Maternal, Newborn, Child Health Technical Advisor; and Dr. Christopher Morgan, Sr Immunization Technical Advisor for the MOMENTUM Private Healthcare Delivery Project.

INVEST and Dalberg developed a new guidance note to support USAID staff, providing a brief overview of how USAID can facilitate blended finance activities and ensure they achieve both additionality and human impact.

This month, The Market Corner looks at health systems and why health professionals are turning to systems thinking and market systems development (MSD) approaches in their work. Systems thinking evolved with contributions from a diversity of disciplines.