Established: 2005 (Evolved from the BDS working group, active from 1996-2008)
Goal
The SEEP Market Development Working Group helps development practitioners to strengthen market systems so that poor people contribute to and benefit from linking their enterprises with growing markets.
Objectives
·Identifying documenting, and disseminating best practices.
·Educating the practitioners, researchers and funders about the importance of market development and about practitioner perspectives on strategies for market development.
·Contributing to global standards and guidelines.
·Maintaining an on-line community of practice focused on market development.
·Networking with fellow Working Group members, learning from them, and sharing that learning with other SEEP members.
Recent and Current Activities
·Development of Practitioner Guidelines on Economic Recovery after Crisis. The guidelines will span the range of interventions used in conflict- and disaster-affected environments, from cash-based and productive asset replacement immediately during or following a crisis, to microfinance and market development interventions, which continue beyond the stabilization phase. The goal of the guidelines will be to promote better practices in these interventions, so as to improve impact and potentially accelerate economic reconstruction. The guidelines are housed under the auspices of this working group, with support from the USAID FIELD-Support LWA program. SEEP also aims to coordinate the development of these guidelines with the Sphere Project, with the hope that the guidelines may be used as a ‘companion module’ to the next revision of the Sphere guidelines for humanitarian relief. Our kickoff workshop was held Sept. 2007. We will hold a donor-practitioner dialogue on working in crisis-affected areas in conjunction with the SEEP Annual Conference on October 23, 2007. The guidelines will be released initially in October 2008.
·Market development and HIV/AIDS: On-Line Discussion and Progress Note on “Income Generation and Economic Support for HIV/AIDS Impacted Communities.”
·Market Facilitation: Moving from Market Assessment & Design to Action:The SEEP Network and the Livelihoods Network look to expand practitioner-led learning on market facilitation practices and tools and facilitate broader interactions among the global community of donors and practitioners. A wide body of guidance and tools on market research and program design is available, but far fewer resources exist on implementation. The two global networks will identify how to assist in working effectively through markets, build relationships, to use subsides strategically, promote copy cats and determine the pros and cons of different approaches to market facilitation.
For more information, please contact the facilitator, Tracy Gerstle.
This paper documents practitioners’ experiences and innovations in market development for income generation and livelihood security in crisis and post-crisis settings. War and natural disasters have devastating impacts on people’s ability to generate income and secure a sustainable livelihood that can help protect them from future shocks. Relief initiatives, in their admirable work to meet the basic needs of people affected by crisis, often inadvertently distort private sector markets and unintentionally create vulnerabilities and dependency. Market development (an approach to enterprise development, livelihood security, and pro-poor economic growth) attempts to avoid market distortion, and use the power of markets to move communities more rapidly from relief dependency to independent livelihood security. This practice is in early stages, but experience to date reveals several challenges and key lessons, discussed at length in the paper.
This is a working annotated bibliography of the 40 publications produced by the SEEP Practitioner Learning Program in BDS Market Assessment, Client Assessment, Poverty Assessment, Improving the Efficiency of MFIs, and Strategic Alliances for Financial Services and Market Linkages in Rural Areas.
This newsletter is a publication of the Practitioner Learning Program (PLP)in Strategic Alliances for Financial Services and Market Linkages in Rural Areas. The PLP is a SEEP Network initiative for exploring key challenges facing the microenterprise field. The PLP, a competitively run grants program, focuses on generating, communicating, and leveraging the results and lessons from its grants to benefit the industry as a whole.
Le projet AFE-Mali visant á promouvoir les services destinés aux producteurs de beurs de beurre de karité au Mali s’est déroulé de 2002 á 2005. Une évaluation du , autrement dit de la filière, a montré que les producteurs de karité souffraient d'un manque d'accès à des marchés à plus forte valeur ajoutée et avaient besoin de services de gestion de la qualité pour les aider à satisfaire aux normes du marché. Cette étude a également montré que les intermédiaires, à savoir les exportateurs de beurre et d'amandes de karité, étaient les mieux placés pour fournir ces services et bénéficier de l'augmentation des ventes d'un produit de meilleure qualité. L'equipe du projet a fait le pari qu'en renforcant la capacité des exportateurs à se mettre en relation avec des acheteurs étrangers et à gérer la qualité du beurre de karité, ceux-ci s'investiraient dans la collaboration avec les producteurs pour améliorer la qualité du produit.
La majeure partie de la littérature sur le développement des marchés des services aux entreprises (SAE) met l’accent sur le rôle du facilitateur dans la phase de mise en œuvre du programme. Pourtant, I'un des enseignements qui ressort du programme Practitioner Learning Program (PLP) du SEEP Network est l'importance de ce rôle de facilitation durante les phases d'étude de marché et de conception du programme. Cette note technique fournit des conseils pratiques aux opérateurs sur le rôle du facilitateur, notamment sur la manière d'adopter une perspective systémique lors de l'initiation d'un programme.
