Blog

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

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.

It is essential that markets actively engage people, regardless of gender, to increase the likelihood of generating value-added solutions for society. In this context, gender inequities are not secondary but are of primary concern.

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.

Driving interoperable payments in Latin America through the mobile platform BICOO to address key barriers facing the unbanked.

The ILO Toolkit is a practical resource for organisations and projects to support small and medium enterprises (SME) decide what aspects of SME performance (productivity, working conditions, etc.) to measure, as well as how to measure them.

A partnership with USAID, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, and the Visa Foundation aims to address barriers that women entrepreneurs face by building supportive entrepreneurial ecosystems in emerging markets.

KATA Solar is one of a dozen Ghanaian companies offering rooftop solar. Sales of solar products in West Africa’s off-grid energy access market jumped by nearly one-third in the first half of 2017.

This post highlights the USAID-funded Cooperative Development Program, which promotes measurable impacts on women’s earning potential and leadership in cooperative organizations in Rwanda.

This post introduces USAID’s Creating Economic Opportunities project, which aims to help qualified people find jobs that give them the stability and prosperity they want for their families.

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.

This is the first in a two-part blog series. It draws on ongoing research in South Sudan funded by USAID/OFDA and implemented by Mercy Corps and the Feinstein International Centre at Tufts University. This post presents research findings on the importance of social connections for coping and recovery.

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.

This post starts an important evidence-based discussion about why diversity and inclusion are central to addressing complex challenges.

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.

The Government of Morocco is addressing the challenge of providing youth with skills to enter complex, highly competitive global industries. Morocco's Employability and Land Compact introduces a scalable model for secondary education to improve graduates' employability.

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.

In July, Marketilnks is spotlighting Youth Employment in observance of World Youth Skills Day. Check out this post on measuring youth skills development.

In Moldova, the “golden triangle” of collaboration among industry, government, and academia is transforming the technology sector. Here’s the recipe for success from the Moldova Competitiveness Project.

Promising results are unfolding as project staff begin to think and work politically on one USAID project in Timor-Leste.

This month, Marketlinks is highlighting the topic of Youth Employment.

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.

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.