Market Systems

As a leader in fostering the value chain approach to development, we look at the larger market system and align the incentives of stakeholders to promote market participation and market inclusion for marginalized groups. We implement USAID’s Leveraging Economic Opportunities (LEO) project, which aims to improve USAID programming by enabling the development of inclusive market systems. To support this process, we developed a framework that defines market systems and provides general guidelines for interventions.

To ensure both genders have equal access to inclusive market systems, we provide women and men business skills training and foster their access to markets and credit. Where women are traditionally excluded from market-system involvement, we facilitate the formation of women’s groups to bring them market power and increase the number of women in business leadership roles.

Mobile technology has a lot to offer as we construct inclusive market systems in partnership with our project participants. Mobile technology makes market system components like payroll, purchasing, market information systems, and traceability more accessible, more secure, and more discreet.

As young people are typically the innovators in market systems, we value youth groups that empower the next generation to lead itself. Our projects provide youth with mentoring opportunities through which they build numeracy and literacy competencies thanks to the involvement of more experienced community members.

The strengthening of public- and private-sector actors to increase the competitiveness, inclusiveness, and resilience of target market systems is central to ACDI/VOCA’s work. To achieve this, we assist a variety of market-system actors. We work with international and national companies, host-country governments, bi- and multilateral institutions, and other donors and clients to map and analyze local market systems and identify high-value partners and investment opportunities. We assist market-system actors as they improve their organizational and business management systems and practices, increase access to information and services, mobilize resources, expand and strengthen business networks, and structure new business partnerships. We facilitate collaborative public – private partnerships and productive business alliances that:

• Create new opportunities for market system actors to innovate and compete
• Minimize barriers that often preclude women, youth, and other marginalized groups from profitably engaging in markets

We identify and develop various entry points as which market actors—smallholder farmers, agribusinesses, financial institutions—can benefit from enhanced financial services. We believe that healthy economies require robust financial ecosystems to thrive.

We bring our on-the-ground knowledge, sector expertise, and focus on impact and measurement to our private-sector partnerships. As a leader in identifying investment opportunities for the private sector that leverage public programs, we match stakeholders’ needs and resources. Each capitalizes on the other’s expertise to achieve mutual goals.

Through ACDI/VOCA’s commitment to engaging with actors along the value chain, nutrition-sensitive interventions are able to affect not only families at the household level, but also assist people move beyond subsistence farming, thereby creating sustainable change as they are better able to access market-system opportunities.  Our market-system approach creates linkages that increase incomes, create demand for nutrient-rich crops, and are inclusive of women.  Nutrition-sensitive interventions ensure that market-system activities support sustainable improvements to nutrition status.