Blog

Ruth Campbell of ACDI/VOCA unpacks some of the characteristics of resilient market systems.

How does one make sense of a messy and chaotic agricultural small and medium enterprise landscape? Check out these insights from Malawi.

Christine Faveri of MEDA introduces a new training course on integrating gender equality and women’s economic empowerment into value chain and market systems development.

How can markets be an empowering force for marginalized and exploited women in economies around the world? ACDI/VOCA's Lindsey Jones explains LEO's Women's Economic Empowerment framework.

For me, one of the big attractions of the value chain framework is the boxes: crisp blue boxes neatly lined up in rows. It makes economic development look so orderly and clearly defined.

Why does wage work matter? ACDI/VOCA's Anna Garloch highlights some of her key takeaways from a recent stocktaking report on wage labor. Join the conversation by commenting or tweeting #wageworkmatters.

Underdevelopment and missed market opportunities come with real costs, especially for women.

When a market system isn’t humming along as it should, something must be missing. Read on for examples from Cambodia and Guinea.

The multiplier concept is an important part of the development of inclusive market systems.

Let's rethink how projects should be evaluated in the context of systems thinking.

The LEO project is speeding towards the finish line! LEO’s broad goals of increasing the capacity of donors and implementers to design, implement and evaluate market systems projects have led to some landmark publications.

LEO seeks to support missions and implementers in improving the performance of market systems to generate growth, and to structure that growth in such a way that it is inclusive of women and the extreme poor.

On April 30, USAID’s Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) project stopped to take stock of advances made in its first seven months.

Several terms have gained prominence in recent times. The SARS-CoV-2, Covid-19, pandemic caused much thinking on localisation and heightened questions surrounding shifting the power. As we moved forward from the worst of the pandemic, lessons have been drawn in different ways by those seeking to make changes happen. Regularly, this is within the specific organisational agenda noting one of the rules of a bureaucracy is to perpetuate itself. Shifting the power is great – as long as my job is ok?