PRIME: Facilitative Approach for Nascent Markets

Mercy Corps believes that “in a market-development approach, facilitation seeks to catalyze a market system (all the elements of the market) while remaining outside that market system.” USAID agrees and adds that “market facilitators work to stimulate markets to evolve in a way that increasingly involves and benefits both the producers and the businesses without becoming a part of the market themselves. They seek to catalyze ongoing pro-poor market improvement, while keeping ownership firmly among market actors and avoiding dependency”. To build resilience of pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, and people transitioning-out-of-pastoralism (TOPs) of Ethiopia’s dry-land communities, Mercy Corps’ Pastoral Areas Resilience Improvement Through Market Expansion (PRIME) project strengthens the systems within which vulnerable households operate. The project does so using a facilitative approach, by integrating activities, and appropriate "push-pull" strategies. Download this library resource to learn more about the facilitation approach in nascent markets.