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.

Case Study Series: Women-Inclusive Return on Investment (WI-ROI)

These case studies profile select small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that have implemented a women-inclusive intervention and can demonstrate financial returns for that investment. The case studies help address a gap in evidence from firms in lower- and middle-income countries on the return on investment (ROI) from women’s inclusion and unpack themes from USAID’s Women Inclusive Return on Investment (WI-ROI) Framework.

The case study series features:

  • By: Erin MarkelSabine GarbarinoYaquta Fatehi
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A two by two grid with icons of a woman, a handshake, a turning gear, and two people with money.

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5.2.6. Methods of Influencing Informal Rules

Identifying Effective and Ineffective Practices A good first step in changing informal rules is to analyze which norms are beneficial and which are not. SDCAsia has had success in involving community members in a process to build on the best norms and discard the not-so-good norms. To promote the implementation of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) standards for Cardava banana farming, SDCAsia needed to change the norms of how farmers typically manage their Cardava farms.

5.2.2. Interaction between Informal and Formal Rules

Informal rules have an intimate relationship with formal laws, policies and standards. Formal rules often exist, and are most effective, when they codify informal norms that are already widely accepted. Equally, informal rules, norms and conduct do not only emerge from past traditions and habits influenced by culture, religion and gender: sometimes they also emerge as a response to formal institutions that fail to function to the benefit of the majority or a dominant group.

5.6.1. Resources on the Value Chain Approach and Vulnerable Populations

General Market Systems for Resilience, produced by ACDI/VOCA, focuses on the synergy and tensions between market systems development and resilience programming. It describes how markets are essential for resilience, and explores how markets themselves can be made resilient to shocks and stresses.