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This post was written by USAID Private Sector Engagement and was originally published on Exposure.

In Kenya, the law governing cooperative businesses predates the 2010 Constitution. As a newly decentralized nation with 47 ‘distinct but interdependent’ counties, the 1997 national cooperative law needs to change to reflect the new government structure. What is harder to agree on is how. It is important to get it right because cooperatives are key contributors to Kenya’s economy.

Agriculture and food security, democracy, human rights and governance, economic growth and trade, environment and global climate change, gender, and women’s empowerment. What sectors do you work in? Whatever they may be, in the quest to increase local efforts for a more resilient, prosperous, democratic, and inclusive world, there has never been a better time to focus on cooperatives! What is a Cooperative?

By Abigail Martuscello, Vikāra Institute

This is the second installment in May’s Market Corner series, written by Holly Lard Krueger, which focuses on the market systems development (MSD) tools and resources being shared at the 2022 Market Systems Symposium and ways for practitioners to engage with the MSD community both at and outside of the annual event.

This post was written by Benjamin Medam and Daniel Hudner, Mercy Corps was originally published on the Vikāra Institute's website.  

This post was written by Luca Crudeli and Dun Grover, ACDI/VOCA was originally published on Vikāra Institute's website.  

This post was written by Ellie Wong and Tamam Noor, World Vision Australia and was originally published on the Vikāra Institute's website.  

This blog written by Mike Klassen, Springfield Centre and Sonja Hofstetter, Swisscontact was originally posted on Vikāra Institute's website.  

This blog post, written by Thom Sinclair, director of knowledge management and collaborating, learning, and adapting at Bixal was originally posted on the Vikāra Institute website.

This post was written by Holly Lard Krueger. During the pandemic, opportunities to step out of our day-to-day and into a place of sharing and learning took on greater importance. For many in the market systems development (MSD) community, the annual Market Systems Symposium (MSS) is one of these special opportunities to come together (virtually) to share, debate, and learn.

In this second installment of a four-part series on impact investing and finance for development, Autumn Gorman from USAID's Private Sector Engagement Hub discusses blended finance.

This blog, written by Kathryn Merckel, ACDI/VOCA, was originally posted on Vikāra Institute's website.

This blog, written by Dexis, was originally posted on Vikāra Institute's website.

To continue developing a deeper understanding of impact investing and finance for development, Autumn Gorman from USAID's Private Sector Engagement Hub discusses what is and what is not yet impact investing in this first installment of a four-part blog series.

This post was written by Mike Field and Abigail Martuscello, Vikāra Institute.

In April’s second installment, the Market Corner continues its conversation with Sana Kapadia from Gender Smart Investing and Rory Moses, Independent Consultant most recently with the G7 Impact Taskforce and previously Associate Director at Palladium Impact Capital, about the obstacles to greater uptake of deep impact investing approaches like 

This post was authored by Mike Field, Vikāra Institute.

The affordability of safe and effective medicines is a critical determinant of equitable access. The share of total health expenditures on pharmaceutical products is extremely variable in the member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ranging from 6% (Denmark) to 34% (Bulgaria). However, obtaining accurate information about the affordability of medicines in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is often complex and challenging, and the information remains incomplete.

This is the second installment of The Market Corner's series on applying a systems approach to e-businesses, which unpacks key lessons from the private sector side of e-business to help inform market systems development interventions. Read the first post here.

This post is the second in Marketlinks' ecommerce series and is authored by Kati Suominen, Founder and CEO, Nextrade Group and Technical Director, eTrade Alliance. Read the first post here.

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.

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.