Resource Library

The Resource Library serves as a broad resource hub, including over 1000 documents, training materials, wikis, and curated reports to increase readers' awareness, understanding, and proficiency of several topics in market systems development. Users have access to proposals, evaluation materials, and USAID policy updates, as well as training modules and wikis to boost skills and knowledge.

These resources are bolstered by the inclusion of curated USAID reports published on the USAID Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC) which serves as a repository of reports from completed or ongoing USAID development projects around the globe. The full USAID Development Clearinghouse website can be accessed here.

November 20, 2023

This announcement was originally posted on Climatelinks.

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CARE’s Pathways to Empowerment

CARE’s Pathways program is based on the conviction that women farmers possess enormous potential to contribute to long-term food security for their families and substantially impact nutritional outcomes in sustainable ways.

The Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis (EMMA) Review and Case Studies

EMMA helps front-line staff to understand the market aspects of an emergency situation and to communicate this knowledge promptly and effectively into programme decision-making processes.

Integrated Health and Microfinance in India: Harnessing the Strengths of Two Sectors to Improve Health and Alleviate Poverty

The report demonstrates how microfinance can be further leveraged to provide a powerful tool to address one of India’s persistent barriers to the economic advancement of the poor: ill health caused by lack of access to health services.

Smart Note: Responding to a Crisis at Fundeser

The Smart Note, “Responding to a Crisis at Fundeser” describes how the MFI dealt with the aftermath of both the worldwide credit crisis and the internal No Pay Movement (Movimiento No Pago).

Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: the Emergence and Diffusion of Pro-Poor Social Policy in Latin America

This thesis highlights the unintended consequences of CCT programs. It also attempts to identify the causal pathways that led to the implementation of targeted, conditional cash transfer programs in sixteen countries in Latin America.

Taking Stock: Financial Education Initiatives for the Poor

The aim of the “Taking Stock: Financial Education Initiatives for the Poor” report is to understand the landscape of financial education programmes for low-income households, what works in financial education programmes for these households, and why.

CARE’s Tsunami Response Program Supporting Post-Disaster Recovery with a Value Chain Approach for Highly Marginalized Communities

This case study provides an illustration of the potential for a value chain approach to reduce poverty and social exclusion in a challenging, post-disaster environment.

Smallholder Commercialization: Processes, Determinants and Impact

This paper by the International Livestock Research Institute reviews the available literature on smallholder commercialization. Of particular interest, the paper discusses the arguments for smallholders to scale-up and commercialize existing food crops versus beginning to produce completely new crops specifically for sale. The production of high-value crops typically generates greater returns for producers, but also typically implies greater risks and barriers to entry. In general, commercialization is found to be positive for families, though the impacts vary.

Patterns and Trends in Food Staple Markets in Eastern and Southern Africa: Toward the Identification of Priority Investments and Strategies for Developing Markets and Promoting Smallholder Productivity Growth

In an effort to identify appropriate interventions and policies for improving food security, this paper provides a synthesis of recent research into the behavior of producers and consumers of staple food crops in Eastern and Southern Africa.

Global Food Crisis Response Program: Review of Lessons Learned

The Global Food Crisis Response Program: Review of Lessons Learned is a helpful and balanced analysis produced by the agency that implemented the program:  Mercy Corps. Reaching 75,000 people over 18 months across five countries facing food shortages, the ambitious project aimed to use rapid market analysis to inform quick-impact interventions, while also addressing longer-term needs.  Its interventions varied significantly by context, but always included a focus on specific agricultural value chains. Short-term resource transfers in the form of vouchers or cash for

The ADAPT Project in Zambia Successes and Lessons in Building a Scalable Network of Rural Agro-Dealers to Serve Smallholder

Case Study features the experiences of CARE Zambia under a three-year, $3,000,000 Agro-Dealer Project (ADAPT).

Growth is Good, but is Not Enough to Improve Nutrition

This brief of a longer paper presents several important findings of relevance to value chain programs.  First, work in the agricultural sector will have a greater impact on nutrition at higher levels of poverty but becomes less important as it declines, when the development of other sectors will be more important to nutritional gains.  Second, economic growth alone is insufficient to address all aspects of child malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies.  Examples of Malawi and Yemen illustrate how the development of agricultural value chains that would be appropriate in th

Farmer, Trader, and Consumer Decision-making: Toward Sustainable Marketing of Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato in Mozambique and Uganda

This short note provides an extremely interesting case study of how a value chain approach was used to introduce orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) in Mozambique and Uganda.

Enhancing Nutritional Value and Marketability of Beans through Research and Strengthening Key Value-Chain Stakeholders in Uganda

This short note presents the approach being used by the Dry Grain Pulse Collaborative Research Support Program in Uganda to improve nutritional outcomes through the development of the bean value chain.  The initiative explicitly applies a sustainable livelihoods framework and related tools, including through its emphasis on using participatory methodologies.  In the context of minimal commercialization and low productivity of the bean crop, despite its high micronutrient content, the project works to address multiple overlapping value chain constraints.  The note describes so