KEY LEARNING POINTS
Implement limited and focused
interventions: Because any
intervention will change the market,
limited and focused interventions are
more likely to address a market issue
with minimal distortion. Focus on
areas of high leverage with focused
actions at the right time and in the
right place to ensure significant
results.
Be responsive: Allow the program to
be flexible and responsive to the
market - a flexible, entrepreneurial
approach works better for market
development program than the
traditional steps that developed set
objectives and indicators and lead to
the achievement of program outputs.
Markets can change rapidly and often
react to the facilitators‘ efforts in
unexpected ways. Facilitators must be
free to respond to the market, taking
advantage of opportunities and
changing strategies as appropriate.
Adopt a business-like approach:
Projects must be business-like and
demand led, be sustainable, be
focused, maximize outreach and
acknowledge who can do what best.
This approach has a number of
advantages - it requires investment
from partners meaning that the
financial scale of the initiative will
generally fit the capacity of the market
- the approach attaches a value to
support and business-like
relationships foster business-like
incentives, behavior and attitudes and
it further builds ownership without
being overwhelmed by external funds
and advice.
Separate the roles of provider and
facilitator: Offering services vis a vis
encouraging others to supply services
could present a conflict of interest.
While suppliers focus on their bottom
line a true facilitator adopts a
development agenda. Where public
funds are used to fund facilitators they
should disappear as they work to
empower market actors to take over
their role.
Grow a meaningful agenda: Think
about the value proposition for the
different stakeholders and focus on
issues that touch as many actors as
possible. Issues die out if there is not
enough interest and may feel
threatened by the empowerment of
others. Use consultants to encourage
dialogue and interaction between
stakeholders via the delegation of
clear actions. Demonstrate how these
actions will benefit all concerned.
Applied appropriate grant
management principles: The super
facilitator must clearly define grant
application procedures; ensure a
transparent and objective selection
criteria; ensure equitable access to
grant procurement announcements;
clearly define processes, procedures
and roles and responsibility for the
grant selection committee; ensure
regular monitoring and evaluation of
grant recipients; and enable
stakeholder access to grant
information via the program Web Site.
Communicate the benefits of the
approach: It is a major challenge when
many agencies employ different
methods of engagement. When other
agencies pay allowances they raise
certain expectations among
stakeholders regarding donor
engagement. It takes time to build the
capacity of key stakeholders in the
market-based approach and for them to
feel the benefits and value of a different
way of working. If people feel that their
problems are being solved then this is
the perfect leverage,
Respond in weak or limited support
markets: BDS best practice states that
we should facilitate, not interfere with,
the development of commercial support
markets. Although the ideal is to act as a
facilitator, in weak markets it may be
necessary for an organization to act as a
provider for a limited time. The
intervening organization can act as a
facilitator, provider, or a combination of
both at different stages in a program. In
general, acting as a provider should be
only an interim measure, and an exit
strategy should be part of the up-front
design.
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