Resource Library

Learn about Local Labor Market Assessments and how youth-serving organizations can use such assessments in their work. Watch the recording below: 

Is the development community at risk of losing hard-won diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) gains due to the pandemic? What DEI implications should Implementing Partners consider when designing their future working models? What are development professionals demanding in their post-pandemic careers and what are the DEI implications?

Climate change is a global crisis. As temperatures and sea levels rise, people around the world are increasingly seeing heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires upend their lives. The effects of climate change are not equal – they disproportionately impact the poorest and most marginalized communities USAID works to support every day. Climate change affects virtually everything that USAID does and threatens the development progress it has supported over more than 60 years.

Throughout the world, widespread gender gaps in financial inclusion and economic empowerment negatively affect the lives of women and hinder economic growth. Recognizing an urgent need to close these gaps, USAID INVEST (INVEST) alongside the USAID Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Hub (USAID/GenDev) has built a $23 million portfolio of activities to advance women’s economic empowerment. The following fact sheet takes a look at USAID/GenDev and INVEST's approaches to advancing women's economic empowerment, as well as their partners, activities, and objectives under the portfolio. 

Inadequate food handling practices and poor infrastructure across supply chains increase health risks to consumers, in addition to being root causes of pre-consumer loss and waste in the overall food system. Feed the Future Business Drivers for Food Safety (BD4FS), implemented by Food Enterprise Solutions (FES) and funded by USAID, is a multi-country effort that works alongside agrifood actors to codesign and implement incentive-based strategies to accelerate the adoption of food safety practices in local food systems.

The USAID Women’s Economic Empowerment Community of Practice (USAID WEE CoP) was established in 2020 to accelerate the pace of change in advancing gender equality and women’s economic empowerment by sharing what is effective and what does not work. Through the USAID WEE CoP, members convene, identify, and share proven, promising, and potential models that advance economic growth through gender equality. 

Through the Women’s Economic Empowerment and Equality Technical Assistance (WE3 TA) task order, Banyan Global produced a toolbox to accelerate women's public procurement.

This page includes a series of resources aimed at capturing practical guidance and applied experience in market systems resilience (MSR), developed through the Feed the Future Market Systems and Partnerships Activity. 

This ILO Working Paper examines the annual investment required for universal, collectively funded childcare and long-term care services, as well as adequate paid care leave and breastfeeding breaks to parents in 82 countries. 

This training facilitators’ guide provides an overview of a set of USAID’s Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) market development tools that focuses on market facilitation and uses storytelling in the form of storybook comics. These tools are intended to be used with development project staff to build capacity around effective market facilitation strategies and implementation. While the cartoons focus on the agricultural sector, the principles are relevant across sectors.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated weaknesses in the global health care system. Annual investments in infectious disease prevention research have declined since 2007, while risks of antimicrobial resistance and pathogens with pandemic potential have increased. Health care systems were underfunded and understaffed before COVID-19 emerged. The pandemic has worsened conditions. Significant investment is required to better prepare for infectious disease outbreaks and strengthen health systems worldwide.

USAID’s new Market Systems Resilience (MSR) State of the Field Map provides a snapshot of where an MSR lens is being intentionally applied in programming and research and learning initiatives globally.

USAID's Mobilizing Finance for Development (MF4D) self-paced course aims to equip USAID staff and development practitioners with a fundamental understanding of finance and the tool and resources to mobilize capital investment for sustainable development outcomes.

Fish is an important contributor to the Senegalese economy and diet, with Senegal having one of the highest consumption rates of fish in Africa (29 kg/person/year according to a 2017-2018 study; ANSD, 2020).  It serves as important protein source for many because of its low cost and its high availability. Due to its perishable nature, fish are commonly processed after capture to increase the longevity of products. In 2018, over 38,924 tons of fish were processed in Senegal, worth an estimated $47,523,252 USD (Ministere Despecheset De L’Economie, 2019).

USAID engages with many stakeholders, including those in the private sector, to increase the impact of its development efforts and accelerate development progress. Multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) are one key collective-action approach that USAID, working with others, has supported to address highly complex problems.

The Enduring Results summary report assesses what drives enduring or sustained results in partnerships with USAID and the private sector. The report demonstrates how these partnerships can realize the market solutions that create impact beyond USAID funding.

Private sector engagement (PSE) is fundamental to our goal to end the need for foreign assistance. This policy is a call to action for staff from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and our partners to embrace market-based approaches as a more-sustainable way to support communities in achieving development and humanitarian outcomes at scale. This is based on our premise that private enterprise is one of the most powerful forces for lifting lives, strengthening communities, and accelerating countries to self-reliance.

A Systemic Approach to Inclusive Markets for Refugees and Host Communities

USAID recognizes that the private sector is a critical stakeholder in driving and sustaining outcomes capable of moving countries beyond the need for assistance. Today, the private sector is playing an unprecedented role in creating and shaping opportunities that improve the lives of the people and communities USAID supports. USAID has, therefore, committed to a major cultural and operational transformation in the way development programs are conceived, designed, and delivered – emphasizing collaboration, co-designing, and co-financing with the private sector.

This report presents the results of field research in Brazil which aims to identify ways for migrants and refugees to secure employment and take advantage of market opportunities.  

The International Labour Organization (ILO) and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) developed the Approach to Inclusive Market Systems (AIMS) to facilitate the development of market-based interventions for the economic inclusion of refugees and other forcibly displaced. Focusing on Dadaab, this study provides a market system analysis for interventions aimed at enabling the self-reliance of refugees and host communities, and thereby contributing to a broader local economic development (LED) agenda. Two complementary pieces form the basis of this report:

The one-year BMZ-funded project to promote livelihoods of forcibly displaced persons and host communities focused on improving livelihoods in the livestock sector in the Somali Region of Ethiopia using the Approach to Inclusive Market Systems (AIMS) developed jointly by ILO and UNHCR.

Forced displacement is becoming increasingly global in scope and protracted in nature, mak¬ing it critical to devise innovative responses. Entrepreneurship promotion constitutes one such response. This rough guide provides initial practical insights and recommendations for practitioners seek¬ing to implement entrepreneurship promotion programs in forced displacement settings.   

A market system analysis of the horticulture sector with a view to promoting livelihoods of Lebanese host communities and Syrian refugees.

A value chain assessment for the employment of refugee and host communities in Arua